


Antumbra

by nicole_writes



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Action/Adventure, Adventure & Romance, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Space Opera, Drama, F/M, Intrigue, Loosely inspired by the Expanse by James SA Corey, Multi, Political Alliances, Political Drama, Politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:53:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 30
Words: 150,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24884893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nicole_writes/pseuds/nicole_writes
Summary: Peace between the United Earth Kingdom and the Martian Empire lies in a tentative balance. Change is coming to the system and the slightest imbalance in politics and secrets between allies and foes could lead to an all-out war.Dimitri, Earth's Prince, desires peace. Edelgard, the new Martian Emperor, strides towards war. Claude, uniter of the Outer Colonies, pushes for freedom.
Relationships: Annette Fantine Dominic/Felix Hugo Fraldarius, Ashe Duran | Ashe Ubert/Petra Macneary, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/My Unit | Byleth, Edelgard von Hresvelg & Hubert von Vestra, Ferdinand von Aegir/Dorothea Arnault, Hilda Valentine Goneril & Claude von Riegan, Ingrid Brandl Galatea/Sylvain Jose Gautier, Lysithea von Ordelia & Claude von Riegan, Mercedes von Martritz/Dedue Molinaro, My Unit | Byleth & Claude von Riegan
Comments: 488
Kudos: 231





	1. One - Rising Shadows

**Author's Note:**

> So. This fic. I don't know where it came from. But it exists, I'm hyped about it, and also afraid. I had just finished my last major project when my brain went: what happens if you take the characters and the drama of Three Houses and just put it in space. Ergo, this fic was born. 
> 
> Worldbuilding details should become clear across the first few chapters. I have a rather large rotating cast of narrators, who we'll be meeting over the first few chapters. Of course, if you have questions, please throw them in the comments or message me on [Tumblr](https://nicolewrites.tumblr.com/) and I'd be happy to answer them as best I can! 
> 
> I'm hoping to have a once per week update schedule during the summer (maybe more frequently for a little while), but that's subject to change based on my completion of chapters. Ships and character tags are subject to a little bit of change, but mostly I've thrown the important ones in the tags already.

**antumbra:** (Noun) _t_ _he region from which an_ _occulting_ _body appears entirely contained within the_ _disc_ _of the light source._

* * *

One - Rising Shadows

* * *

**NEW YORK CITY, EARTH**

Dimitri stared over the flood walls at the ocean. The waves beat against the concrete rhythmically, the same as they always did. He held his hands behind his back and closed his eyes after a moment, feeling the breeze on his skin. The sun was warm today and it felt good, but he felt stiff and a bit uncomfortable in his suit. 

He never developed his father’s taste for formal clothing. He much preferred a casual shirt and slacks without the regalia befitting his position as the head of the Kingdom. Thankfully, he had managed to convince the Security Council that it wasn’t necessary for him to wear the crown as often as his father had, so he was able to attend routine meetings like this one without the weight on his head. 

“Your Highness,” a voice called. 

Dimitri turned, dropping his hands to his sides and he saw that his loyal companion had approached him. “Dedue,” he greeted in reply. 

The soldier placed a hand over his shoulder and gave a short, respectful bow. “The Council is ready to resume now,” Dedue explained. 

Dimitri sighed and stole a last glance at the sea. “Yes, I suppose we must continue the meeting.”

Dedue smiled faintly. “You could always fall off the wall, sir.”

Dimitri chuckled. “If only that wouldn’t also result in my inevitable death.” He turned fully away from the sea and strode back towards the glass doors on the other side of the pavilion. “Thank you, Dedue.”

Dedue followed him, as usual, and Dimitri stepped back inside the building. The large, circular council table had every seat occupied except the one furthest from the door: his seat. The meeting attendees stood as Dimitri walked around the table to reach his own seat. He clasped his hand on the shoulder of the man who sat to his right before he sat in his own seat. 

Dedue faded away to stand guard in the corner of the room and slowly, the rest of the men and women in the room took their seats, except the woman to Dimitri’s left. She clapped her hands together and flicked her wrist, bringing back the holographic display they had been viewing before the recess. 

“As I was saying,” she began. “We still don’t have a response to our official transmission where we inquired upon the orbital change of this satellite.”

“Cornelia,” the man to Dimitri’s right cut in, “that satellite was installed over thirty years ago. We’re better off being more concerned about the locations of the satellites that we don’t have confirmed.”

“No disrespect, Admiral,” another man said. “I believe the Secretary-General’s concern is more anchored on the fact that we haven’t heard a response from Mars on the subject at all.”

Dimitri’s gaze darted to the man who had spoken. He was wearing a neatly trimmed suit that was almost certainly from one of the highest-end tailors in New York. Andre Gautier was an old friend of his father’s and a political diplomat, one of the few at the table who had actually set foot on Mars. While he appreciated the years of political experience that Andre brought to the Security Council, Dimitri disliked the man. 

He was much more partial to Admiral Rodrigue Fraldarius, the man on his right, who had been his father’s chief military advisor. Rodrigue stood from his seat and stared down both Andre and Cornelia. “A single missed transmission is nothing to get so worked up about,” he pointed out. 

Dimitri leaned back in his chair, turning his gaze on Cornelia. The woman smiled serenely and tapped something on her comm which caused the hologram in the centre of the table to switch to a comm log. It was a series of diplomatic comms that had been sent between Earth and Mars in the last two days and, to Dimitri’s surprise, almost every Earth to Mars comm was marked in yellow. It meant that Mars had received their transmissions and had chosen not to reply. 

“Why are they dark?” he asked. 

Cornelia shook her head. “We’re unsure. After we received the reports from our Intelligence Ops last week that there was unrest in Victoria, Mars’s comms went dark. We’ve only managed to ping a few comms between Deimos and Victoria in the last few days, otherwise, they’ve been using their encrypted channels.”

“We’ve tried sending comms to Thebe and Concordia?” another man asked. 

Dimitri looked at him. Gwendal Rowe was a retired Navy captain who had also been appointed to the Security Council by his father. Rowe was notoriously prickly, but he did keep a level head which was useful in situations that were marked with high tensions, like this one. Dimitri could usually count on him to vote smartly, especially on military matters. 

“Yes,” Cornelia agreed. “All three domes are quiet.”

“What about Deimos?” Dimitri asked. “If you’ve picked up comms from Deimos, surely you can attempt to contact the research station there and ask it to be forwarded to Victoria. Or Phobos, since it’s larger.”

Cornelia paused, as if she hadn’t considered that, and then nodded. “I’ll send word to Phobos after the meeting, Your Highness.”

“Good,” Rodrigue Fraldarius said. “Are there any other matters that have to be taken care of today?”

“We have a report from Pallas,” another man said. He pulled out his comm and tapped the screen, taking over the hologram in the centre of the table. 

“An update on Ceres, General?” Rodrigue asked, sitting back down in his chair. 

The general nodded, standing. He pinched the screen of his comm and the hologram zoomed in on the holographic asteroid on display. “According to officials on Pallas, the same propaganda that surfaced on Ganymede and Vesta has been circulating in the lower districts there.”

Andre Gautier leaned forward, planting his elbows on the table as his brow furrowed. “Still calling for rallies like on Ceres? Do we have a number on the protests there yet?”

General Valen Galatea, the general who was presenting, looked briefly like he had bitten into something very sour and he hesitated. Dimitri could take a guess at what news he was about to deliver.    
  
“Have we lost the station yet?” he asked bluntly. 

“No,” Valen assured. “We still have ships in Ceres’s AO, but our ground numbers have diminished greatly. These protests are different than they have been in the past. They’re more organized and they’re targeting the right people. We’ve lost seven spies and four officials.” He shook his head. “I’ve ordered the comm encryption software updated again, but I’m not sure how much help that will be.”

“It’s obvious though,” Cornelia said, frowning, “isn’t it? We all know who’s behind this. It’s that Riegan boy.”

Valen swiped on his comm and pulled up a 3D-portrait of a face Dimitri was becoming very familiar. Claude von Riegan, son of the late governor of Ceres, Tiana von Riegan. Tiana’s death had left Ceres Station in a precarious position. It was no secret that many of the Outer Colonists desired to be independent from Earth and Mars, but they had always lacked an anchor to hold them together. 

“Can we order a hit on him yet?” Cornelia continued, narrowing her eyes at Claude’s rendered image. 

“No,” Dimitri said firmly. “We have no proof yet that Claude von Riegan is the one behind this. Therefore, we cannot risk antagonizing Ceres or any of the Colonies anymore than we already have.” He looked at Valen. “Has Claude responded to any of our previous queries?”

Valen nodded. “Yes. He has provided us with his travel itinerary and his comm log, but of course that only accounts for his unencrypted public log.”

Dimitri rubbed his chin. “Compare his travel plan against the propaganda and protest reports on all of our colonies.”

Valen tapped a few commands on his comm. The hologram shifted outward, showing a yellow line that zipped between Ceres, Pallas, and Vesta. Blue lights lit up on Ganymede, Ceres, Vesta, and Pallas. Dimitri pointed at Ganymede. 

“He hasn’t been to Ganymede. Shouldn’t he have gone to Ganymede if he’s the one spreading this?”

“With all due respect, Your Highness,” Cornelia interrupted. “The current governor of Ganymede is Holst Goneril. The Goneril and Riegan families have been connected for years and I believe that Holst’s sister actually lives on Ceres and has more direct ties to von Riegan.”

It was a fair assumption, he conceded. Still, he had no desire to further piss off Earth’s colonies. He stood up from his seat and folded his hands calmly behind his back. “We’ll wait and see the result of the message spreading on Pallas. Ensure that our troops on Ceres remain peaceful and under control. There is no reason to spike animosities with the Outer Colonies while we’re already dealing with a blackout from Mars.” He turned directly to Cornelia. “Continue trying to reach Mars. I want an official statement as soon as you do.”

Cornelia dipped her head respectfully. “Yes, Your Highness.”

He looked around the council room. “Is there anything else?”

“No,” Andre replied. “That is everything.”

Dimitri nodded. “Good. This meeting is dismissed.”

* * *

**VICTORIA, MARS**

Edelgard watched the needle pierce her skin slowly. The syringe depressed and the clear solution was injected into her bloodstream. It burned  _ viciously _ as it did, but she didn’t so much as let her eyebrow twitch to betray her pain. The needle withdrew and a cotton swab replaced it. She reached up and placed her own hand over the swab, applying the necessary pressure to prevent blood from flowing out. 

She watched patiently as Linhardt stepped back, dropping the needle into the plastic bin he was carrying with him. He stripped off the plastic gloves he wore and balled them up. He yawned and stepped further away, packing up the kit that he had brought. 

“Thank you, Linhardt,” Edelgard said politely. 

He paused and looked back at her. “It’s just a shot,” he pointed out. 

Edelgard adjusted the neck of her robe, pulling it back up over her shoulder. She stood up and straightened the red silk robe out. “No, it’s not,” she disagreed quietly. 

Linhardt studied her for another moment before he returned to packing up his kit. “Is your uncle coming today? I only have five more doses for you left.”

Edelgard walked past Linhardt towards the row of curved windows on the wall of her quarters. She stared out at the domed city and fiddled with the sleeve of her robe. “Yes, he should be here today.” She glanced back at Linhardt. “How is your work coming?”

“As well as it can be, I suppose. If only my father hadn’t banned me from my own home,” he drawled sarcastically. 

Edelgard winced. “I am sorry. It was never my intention to create tension between you and your father.”

Linhardt shook his head. “No, it was inevitable. Besides, like any good Martian, I serve the person who sits on the throne.”

She frowned. “Linhardt.”

He smiled faintly at her and picked up his packed bag. “I’ll let you finish getting ready.”

She watched him walk across her quarters and let himself out of the room. As soon as he was gone, the door opened again and Hubert entered the room. Edelgard relaxed upon seeing him and she beckoned him over. He bowed briefly at the entrance to her room before he walked over to her. 

She turned to face the window again and pressed her hand against the glass. “Grand Hall,” she said clearly. The window flickered and changed to display the central hall of the Imperial Palace. 

High-ranking Martian military officials and dignitaries filled the room, socializing and sharing appetizers and drinks. Hubert waved his hand along the window and dismissed the image, changing it back to the view of central Victoria. 

“You’ll be expected shortly,” he said calmly. 

Edelgard sighed. “Yes, I know.” She turned to her bed where her maids had laid out the dress she was to wear. “You did what I asked you to do?”

“Yes,” Hubert assured immediately. “Ludwig signed the document this morning.”

She nodded. “Good. Did he give you any trouble?”

“No,” Hubert replied. “I think he has finally realized that we could have ruined him completely instead of just removing him from his position. I’m more worried about what his son will say after this evening.”

Edelgard strode over to her dress, carefully picking it up and heading behind a privacy partition in the room. She slid the robe off, careful not to jostle her arm too much and stepped into the beautiful red dress. She pulled it up over her chest and studied the gold-tinted metal brace that would fit over her shoulders and torso. 

“We can handle Ferdinand. We’ve adjusted his father’s power, not his. He’ll understand that,” Edelgard said. She stepped out from behind the screen, holding the dress up by its neckline. She frowned and looked at the billowing skirt around her. “Is all of this necessary?”

Hubert stepped behind her and fasted the buttons on the back of the dress so it didn’t fall off and clipping on the metal wing-like top that gave her some coverage over her back. “There is, unfortunately, some pomp and circumstance that comes with coronations.”

She sighed. “Unfortunately.” 

Hubert stepped back from her and Edelgard followed him across the room to the vanity. She adjusted the dress and sat on the stool. She passed Hubert the hairbrush and he began carefully pulling it through her hair, smoothing out any tangles. They were silent for a moment as Hubert worked, pulling sections of her hair up into elegant twists that curled over both of her ears. He left two pieces down in the front and Edelgard fidgeted with one. 

“I received another transmission from Earth today,” Hubert said once he finished doing her hair. He passed her the hairbrush back and she put it down. 

“Direct?”

“No. They sent the message to Phobos with a forwarding address on it. They’re still asking about the satellite near Deimos, but this time they did finally question our blackout responses.”

Edelgard nodded. She reached for the necklace on the vanity and fastened it around her neck, smoothing a hand over the diamond-encrusted chain. “They’ll understand after tonight, I suppose,” she murmured. “You’re ready to act on my cue, right?”

“Yes. The satellite locations are locked to the transponders in the missiles. There should be no issue in launching on your command tonight.”

Edelgard stood up and turned to face Hubert, nodding. “Good. Thank you.”

He held out his arm to her and she slid her hand into the crook of his elbow. He was much taller than her, but they were both used to him escorting her. He had been doing it since they were children. There was no one that Edelgard would have trusted to do the things that Hubert did. 

They walked together out of her room and down the hall towards the main entrance hall. He stepped away from her as they stopped in front of the large doors that led to the Grand Hall. Hubert faded into her shadow and Edelgard squared her shoulders as the doors creaked once and then swung open. 

She kept her chin up as she crossed into the room. The music in the hall stopped and the conversations died as she walked towards the bannister on the balcony that separated her from the rest of the Martians in the room. By the time she placed her hands on the steel railing, the room was dead silent. 

A drone whirred and Edelgard stared at it, focusing on the camera in front of her. 

“My name is Edelgard von Hresvelg. Yesterday, I stood as a puppet to our government. I was a figurehead for them to manipulate in the unbalanced chess game that they challenged Earth to. Today, I stand before you as the Emperor of Mars and her colonies. I won a vote in our parliament today that gave me the power to ascend to my birthright as your emperor.” 

Murmurs swept across the ballroom. Half of the people in attendance here had already known this information since they had both been her allies and her opposition in Parliament earlier in the day. The other half must have been caught completely off-guard by the announcement. 

“I stand before you as a Martian,” she continued, keeping her tone clear and even. “I will no longer stand for Earth’s constant meddling in our affairs. Tonight, I intend to make it clear that my regime shall not be subjected to the same mockery as our previous government. But first,” she turned slightly towards the doors she had entered through. 

Hubert walked forward, holding a black tray that held the golden crown atop it. Edelgard lifted it up and faced the crowd and the camera. She held it above her head and took a deep, centring breath. 

“With this act, I finalize my ascension as the Emperor of a United Mars.” She placed the crown on her head and it settled heavily on her brow, nestled against the hair that Hubert had painstakingly done up for her. She felt a smile slide onto her face and she inclined her chin a little further. 

“Now, it is time to make it clear to Earth that we are strong and that they should be afraid of interfering in our business. My advisors have pinpointed the locations of three of Earth’s spy satellites orbiting Mars. After tonight, these satellites will be no more.”

She discretely waved her hand to Hubert and he turned on the projection devices in the hall, showing the images of three cloaked Earthen satellites in Mars’s AO. There were streaks of brilliant blue light in the projections and then massive bursts of light as the missiles launched from Mars detonated and thoroughly destroyed the satellites. 

Gasps rippled across the room and Edelgard resisted the urge to smirk. She looked straight into the camera again. “This is a warning to Earth. There have been some changes on Mars and we are not to be messed with.” 

As murmurs continued to arc around the room, Edelgard turned and walked back towards the doors that she had entered in. Hubert followed her immediately and the doors closed behind them, leaving them alone in the hallway. Edelgard turned to him immediately. 

“I want that transmission playing in the UEK in New York before they even get the reports that the satellites went down.”

“We’re on a 14-minute transmission delay, but their channel was open to us so they should be receiving it shortly. Those missiles should have scrambled the signal just enough that your message will beat their signals there.”

She nodded. “Good. Then the first part is done.”

* * *

**CALLISTO IV, OUTER COLONIES**

Claude only owned one black dress shirt. There was a hole in it over the elbow on the left arm, but it was easily covered by the black jacket that he was wearing. He rested his forearms against the railing and leaned against it, staring down into the atrium. 

There were about thirty rows of chairs that were full, but Claude’s gaze fixed on one figure sitting in the front row in the centre. His purple hair was easy to see, even from this distance. His head was lowered, but his shoulders were stiff and his back was straight. The man was certainly not the picture of absolute grief, that award went to the weeping, grieving widow that sat next to him, her greying purple hair hidden by a black veil. 

The atrium was mostly full of both people sitting and standing, listening as someone addressed them from the centre of the atrium. There were a few dozen people scattered on the upper levels of Callisto IV, listening to the service as it droned on. Claude flipped a silver coin in his hand and just watched the service, waiting patiently. 

Considering his approval rating on Callisto, Claude was intrigued by the number of people that had bothered to turn up for the governor’s funeral. The man had been nearly universally hated. His only positive reviews had come from the Martian officers stationed on Callisto. Maybe the people were simple here to dance on the governor’s grave. That would be something. 

“There you are,” Hilda said as she walked over to stand next to him. She held a file out to him in her left hand and Claude took it. 

“Thanks, Hil.” He flipped through it until he found the page he was looking for and he smiled. “Just as we thought.”

She rolled her eyes and glanced down at the service. She was wearing a black dress with elegant, lacy sleeves. “It was an obvious enough assumption. You still don’t think he’d listen to you without this?”

Claude chuckled. “I have a funny feeling that Lorenz wouldn’t have let us dock here had he personally known who was on that ship.” He patted the file that she had handed him affectionately. “This is pretty much the only card I have left to play.”

“There are lines spreading in the shipyards here for an Anti-Mars rally that’s going to happen next week. Even if Lorenz isn’t interested in talking to us, surely we can push someone else into the position and still gain a foothold here?”

Claude shrugged. “Probably. Still, the less I do to draw Mars’s attention is good. Earth is already asking for my flight plans.”

Hilda gasped mockingly. “Oh! They’ve finally figured it out? Were we too obvious going to Pallas?”

He smiled. “When is Lysithea’s comm going through to him?”

“Hm,” Hilda said, pulling out her comm. She tapped a few things on her screen and nodded. “Thirty seconds. Give or take a few.”

Claude relaxed against the railing and kept his eyes trained on Lorenz. Almost exactly thirty seconds later, Lorenz’s head snapped up and he made eye contact with Claude. His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t scowl: there were too many eyes on him for him to react in that way. Claude leaned towards Hilda and let a smirk play on his lips as Lorenz looked back towards the service happening. 

“I think he saw me,” he joked.

She rolled her eyes again. “He’ll have the meeting coordinates too, so you should get going.” Claude pushed off the railing, but she grabbed his arm before he walked away. “Don’t fuck this up. The Alliance may need Callisto, but don’t forget that Ganymede is the closest if he retaliates.”

“Come on, Hil, have some faith in both me and your brother. Number one, I’m not going to fuck up. Number two, Holst can handle anything that Callisto throws his way.” 

He patted her hand and pulled out of her grip, heading towards the bar on the fourth level where he had told Lorenz he would be waiting. Claude found a table in the back of the bar and ordered himself a drink. He ordered one for Lorenz too, deciding that any extra flattery he could place on the table probably couldn’t hurt his case. 

He waited only ten minutes before Lorenz found him, walking towards him in the bar, looking angry. Claude sipped from his drink casually as Lorenz approached and waved a hand to the open seat across from him. 

“Hello Lorenz,” he greeted calmly. 

“Claude,” Lorenz snapped in reply. “What are you doing here?”

“Came to pay my respects to your old man, of course.”

Lorenz sighed. “You hated my father. That wasn’t a secret to anyone. What are you really doing here?”

Claude gestured to the drink in front of Lorenz. “Please, I’ve already paid for you.” Lorenz hesitated. “Come on, I know you’re not having a fantastic week. Just have the drink.”

Lorenz sat and took a sip from the drink. “Claude,” he said again. “What’s going on?”

Claude slid the file that Hilda had given him across the table. Lorenz’s eyes narrowed and he looked between the file and Claude. He accepted it warily and flipped it open to the first page of the report within. He closed it and glared at Claude. 

“What is this?”

Claude sipped from his own drink, reclining back in his seat. “It’s your father’s autopsy report.”

“I saw this already. The day after he died.”

“No,” Claude disagreed. “You saw the version that Mars wanted you to see. According to them, your father suffered a fatal heart attack while alone in his office.” He gestured to the file. “He had a meeting with a Martian delegation that day, didn’t he? And, as far as my research shows, those delegates left the very next day. Funnily enough, the visit wasn’t listed on any MN flight plan either meaning one of two things: it wasn’t an officially sanctioned mission–unlikely–or it was a black-ops mission.”

Lorenz almost choked on his drink. “Black-ops? Why would a Martian black-ops team meet with my father?”

Claude looked meaningfully at the folder. Lorenz paused and then opened the report again. Claude studied the other man’s face as he skimmed through the report. When Lorenz got to the part that Claude was waiting for, his face slackened in surprise and he closed the report with a quivering hand. 

“Cortezine,” Lorenz murmured. “Isn’t that a chemical used in reactor fluids? Why were there trace amounts of it in my father’s body and why was that not included in the report that I received?”

“Because,” Claude explained, “Cortezine is also a highly effective and brutal poison. When ingested it causes heart failure in almost all cases. Plus, it’s not a toxin that usually shows up on a tox screen in an autopsy.” 

Lorenz exhaled warily. “Where did you get this report?”

“From the black-ops soldier who poisoned your father,” Claude replied.    
  
Lorenz stared. “What?”

“I heard a rumour a week back that there was an unregistered Martian freighter headed for Mars from Callisto. I tracked its flight plan and saw it had arrived right before and left right after your father’s death. I got curious, so since it had to fly past Ceres, I intercepted it. Three of the men wouldn’t talk to me, but the fourth seemed pretty eager to spill it all. They had the original report with them when I took them in. I figured you should see it.”

“What do you intend to do with the soldiers?” Lorenz asked, his voice hardening. 

Claude waved a hand. “They’re dead. I spaced them.”

Lorenz raised an eyebrow. “Doesn’t seem like your style.”

“Would you have done it differently?”

“No,” Lorenz admitted. “Although I may have shot them first.” He drummed his fingers over the autopsy report on the table between them, clearly thinking about something. “You’ve given me this for a reason.” It wasn’t a question, so Claude just raised an eyebrow and waited for Lorenz to fill in the gaps himself. 

They sat in silence for a moment before Lorenz pushed the report back across the table to him. Claude took it, sliding it along the table. He watched the newly appointed governor of Callisto for a minute. Lorenz’s face was strategically blank, but Claude knew he had figured it out well enough. 

“I’m listening,” Lorenz finally said. 

“None of the royalty bullshit they have on Earth and Mars,” Claude said. “A roundtable for the biggest players that address issues that are actually impactful on the Outer Colonies.”

“How many seats?”

“We’re starting with five.”

“Ceres and Callisto, obviously,” Lorenz said. “I’m assuming Ganymede as well since Hilda is clearly still around. Who else?”

“Io and Vesta. Two former Martian colonies and three former Earth colonies.”

Lorenz fell silent, tapping his glass against the edge of the table as he considered. Claude was patient. He had been doing more than enough personally to be a thorn in the side of the UEK and Martian Empire. Their attention was focused on him so he could handle the heat for a little longer until Lorenz had fully considered his options. Thankfully, he didn’t end up having to wait long at all.

“I’ll join you.”


	2. Two - Of Earth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sylvain gets a new opportunity. Ashe gets his next deployment. Annette starts a new job.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is writing itself.... I wanted to get this chapter up shortly after part 1 because I think it starts to set the tone for where I want to take this fic. Obviously I'm motivated and energized so we'll see how far I get in the next few days because we could get another chapter soon as well~

Two - Of Earth

* * *

**NEW YORK CITY, EARTH**

Sylvain beat his father to the restaurant. He ordered himself a whisky on the rocks from the bar and stood by the window, staring out at the paved courtyard between the United Earth Kingdom headquarters and the Martian Embassy. On both sides of the courtyards, soldiers stood guard, hands clutching heavy guns that they were ready to use the moment they received an order. 

Sylvain knew what a gun felt like in his hands. It wasn’t a pleasant weight to hold. He much preferred to hold a cool, lightly sweating glass of top-shelf whisky. For one, it wasn’t a death sentence to the person who ended up on the other end of it. Second, it happened to be a pleasant sipping drink that flashed just the right amount of authority when he ordered it. 

Sylvain sipped his drink again. His father was definitely running late this time. He was about to pull out his comm to ping him when the device chimed in his pocket. Sylvain pulled it out and read the message scrolling across his screen. There had been a brief extension to the Security Council meeting that required more of his father’s time. 

He strode back to the bar and ordered a top-up, this time lingering and sitting on one of the barstools. He spun the glass around on its bottom rim and watched the amber liquid slosh over the melting ice cubes. He sipped from it idly and let his gaze wander to the holoscreen above the bar. 

The screen was showing a replay of Cornelia Arnim, Secretary-General of the UEK Security Council, giving her response interview to the transmission that Earth had received from Mars last week. After a transmission black-out, everyone on Earth had been shocked to find out that Edelgard von Hresvelg, the Martian Imperial Princess, had been crowned as the Emperor of Mars. 

Sylvain didn’t know too much about the newly-crowned Emperor of Mars. Formerly, Mars had established a Royal Family similar to the one that Earth designated, but the true power on the Red Planet had lain in the hands of its Parliament and the Prime Minister Ludwig von Aegir. Sylvain had never met with the Prime Minister in person, but his father had, on numerous occasions on trips to both Mars and neutral space. 

The UEK Security Council had been working on overdrive since the Martian transmission had arrived along with the vivid warning Mars had given Earth, destroying three surveillance satellites in tandem with the new Emperor’s ascension speech that had rocked the system. Sylvain was impressed by the Martian Emperor’s guts. She had stood in front of her own people and declared that she was overturning a functional government system while simultaneously blowing up Earth’s satellites. It was pretty badass. 

Sylvain was considering ordering a third drink when the restaurant door opened and his father entered. Instead, he signalled the bartender for two double shots and lifted a hand to his father in greeting. Andre Gautier looked exhausted and annoyed as he strode over to his son, arriving at the same moment that the bartender placed the drinks down.   
  
Sylvain watched his father slam back the alcohol and immediately order another drink. He sipped from his glass, just waiting for his father to say something. After Andre had received his refill, he walked away from the bar, towards a table near the window of the restaurant. Sylvain picked up his glass, winked at the bartender, and trailed after his father. 

He sat down and studied him from across the table. Sylvain had been told by many people that he looked very similar to what his father looked like at his age. They shared many of the same facial features: sharp jawline and arched cheekbones paired with a narrow nose. They definitely had the same shock of red hair, though there were noticeable tinges of grey in his father’s hair now. Sylvain inherited his mother’s gold-amber eyes though, instead of the greyish-brown eyes that his father had. Today, his father looked particularly tired and aged. 

“They’re going ahead with it,” Andre grumbled finally after a long few minutes of nothing.   
  
Sylvain raised an eyebrow. “Really? Who voted for it?”

“Rowe, Galatea, Arnim, Charon, and His Highness, himself.”

“You and Rodrigue voted against?”

Andre nodded. “It’s a foolish idea, but His Highness seems dead set on following through with it. I told him that there was nothing he could learn from the meeting that he wouldn’t be able to learn in a few weeks on the diplomatic mission that’s actually going down to the damn planet.”

Sylvain sipped his drink. It sounded like Dimitri to insist on a meeting with Martian officials as soon as possible, rather than just waiting for a scheduled diplomatic mission to Mars. He understood it–there was obviously more to the issue than what they knew on Earth right now. Still, there were probably better ways to establish a line of communication than a meeting in neutral space. 

“He’s insisting that he goes on the mission,” Andre added. 

Sylvain almost choked. “What?”

“It’s a horrible idea. Sending him up there is an invitation for Mars to take the first shot they’ve been dreaming about chasing. Cornelia backed him though, so they’ll get the support of the General Assembly if it comes down to it.”

Sylvain shook his head. “That is the absolute stupidest idea Dimitri has ever had.”

A waiter walked up to their table and passed them each a menu. Sylvain flipped through it idly, but he already knew what he was going to have. He only ever picked between three meals when they dined here. His father focused on the menu like he was actually interested in it and Sylvain let his gaze wander to the window. 

His father cleared his throat and Sylvain glanced back, surprised to see that a grave seriousness had settled over his father’s expression. “I have a request for you, son.”

Sylvain straightened in his chair a bit. “A request?”

“His Highness and a small crew are going up to meet the Martian envoy in three days. My diplomatic mission to Mars is still scheduled for two weeks from now. I want you to go to Mars in my stead.”

Sylvain blinked at his father. “Excuse me?”

“I want you to-” he repeated and Sylvain waved him off. 

“No, I heard you, I just didn’t think I _heard_ you correctly,” Sylvain muttered. “Why do you want me to go instead of you?”

Sylvain’s father calmly sipped from his drink. “The gravity change between Earth and Mars can be debilitating on a person’s body. My doctor recommended that I begin to minimize those changes with my,” he grimaced, “increasing age. Besides, you’ve been studying under me for nearly six years now. You’re more than qualified for the type of diplomacy this mission requires.”

Sylvain narrowed his eyes. Diplomatic missions to Mars were some of the most sought-after assignments for any qualified politician. His father was the UEK’s most experienced diplomat in terms of Martian relations. For him to hand off his mission to his son instead of to the long line of qualified General Assembly members who could do it, it meant that there was something personal involved in this. He made a tactical decision not to question his father. He needed experiences to add to his profile and this was certainly an ultimate experience. 

The waiter returned and Sylvain ordered the chicken while his father ordered roast beef. They passed the rest of the meal in relative quiet, with a few odd questions from his father or small mentionings of things that had happened at the council meeting. After they finished eating, Andre paid the tab, but left it open if Sylvain wanted to stay any longer. He was about to decline his father’s offer when two figures entered the restaurant and made their way to the bar. He smiled tightly at his father and excused himself to approach the newcomers. 

Still holding his whisky glass, Sylvain slid on to the stool next to the short of the two men. “What’s this I hear about you going to meet a Martian envoy in neutral space?”

The man startled, almost spilling the drink he had just been handed, but his soldier shadow didn’t flinch, having seen him coming. “Sylvain!” Dimitri exclaimed. He turned, glancing around the restaurant, with a furrowed brow. “I didn’t know you were here.”

Sylvain waved away his surprise. “Dinner with my father. Now, what’s this about Mars?”

Dimitri sighed. “Look, I know your father doesn’t approve, but it’s the best move. I got the majority I needed for the motion from the Council, so it’s going ahead.”

Sylvain placed his glass down. “Why are you doing this?”

Dimitri stared at him and Sylvain briefly felt like his blue eyes were dissecting him. “Because I need there to be peace,” Dimitri said finally. “Edelgard took control of Mars in a show of strength. If I put myself out there and put my life on the line for my people, she should see it as my own willingness to match her and it should be enough for peace. At least for a little while longer.”

Sylvain put his hand on Dimitri’s shoulder. Dedue tensed behind Dimitri, but he didn’t intervene. “Alright,” Sylvain agreed. “Who’s going with you?”

Dimitri relaxed. “They’re calling in two pilots, plus Dedue, and a team of Marines.”

“A real honour guard you got there, huh? Anyone I would know?” 

“It’s Felix’s team,” Dimitri admitted. “Rodrigue told me he volunteered. Wouldn’t let anyone else take it.”  
  
Sylvain frowned. He had known Dimitri and Felix since the three of them were children. They had gone very different ways in their lives with Dimitri stepping into his role as the prince, Felix joining the Marines, and Sylvain training with his father. He squeezed Dimitri’s shoulder. 

“Don’t go dying on me. I have to get to Mars myself soon anyway.”

* * *

**LONDON, EARTH**

It was raining again. Ashe had tried everything he could to stay dry on his way into command today, but all the shuttles had been full so he’d had to make the dash outside through the pouring rain. Irene, one of the receptionists who had been born in London, laughed at him for the disgruntled look on his face when he entered the command building. 

“I hate rain,” he mumbled, feeling his ears burn red. 

Irene just waved him off. “You weren’t born in London, you get a pass for it.” She glanced around briefly and saw that no one else around was paying them any attention. “Any chance you fixed up that thing for me?”

Ashe brightened. “Oh! Yeah, I finished it last night.” He slid his backpack off his back and dug into the main pocket of it. 

He pulled out the comm unit he was looking for and handed it over to Irene. She cradled it against her chest for a second before shoving it down into her lap and out of sight. She beamed at him and then pulled her purse onto the desk and started digging around in it. 

Ashe held up a hand. “Let’s just do a transfer for it, alright?” He cringed. “It’s a bit less obvious that way.” 

Irene smiled at him and nodded. “Holly and I really thank you, Ashe. All that public comm stuff when they’re deployed is the worst.”

He nodded. “I understand. I mean,” he dropped the volume of his voice, “I first started setting these things up so that I could talk to my siblings. The Navy doesn’t have the best policies about privacy.”

Irene stole a glance at where her now encrypted comm was hidden. “Well, everyone around here certainly seems to appreciate your work. I hope you’re charging enough for your services.”  
  
Ashe shrugged. “I think if I charged what someone on the street did, I’d end up with more money than the Secretary-General and no idea what to do with it all.”

Irene laughed and looked like she was about to say something else to him when his own comm pinged. Ashe pulled it off his belt and saw that he had a summons notification. He swiped it to accept and respond and then slid it away. 

“I have to run, Irene, but I hope it works well for you!” 

He scooped his bag up and headed for the elevator in the lobby. He managed to just catch the carriage and pushed the button for four. There had been no explanation for his summons, but the only thing he could think of was a new deployment. He’d been on training leave in London for almost a year now and he had handily beaten every pilot module they’d thrown at him. 

He straightened the collar of his uniform and tapped his fingers against his leg nervously. The elevator doors slid open and he stepped into the hallway, briskly walking to his Lieutenant Commander’s office. The door to the office was open, but Ashe hesitated on the threshold of the room before he lifted his hand and knocked against the doorframe. 

Lieutenant Commander Juliette Roche looked up as he knocked and she waved a hand to beckon him inside. Ashe walked in and placed his bag down, offering her a brief salute as a proper greeting. 

“At ease, Ensign,” she said calmly. “I’ve heard good things about your progress through the pilot modules,” she said. 

Ashe nodded. “Yes, I actually cleared the last one last week.”  
  
She folded her hands on the desk. “Right, and you’ve come up for reassignment as a pilot because of it.”

Ashe straightened. “Reassignment?”

Commander Roche nodded. “Yes, and I’ve got an assignment I think you’ll be very interested in.” She tapped something out on her comm and Ashe’s pinged in his pocket. 

He pulled it out and looked at the deployment offer she had just sent him. He froze upon seeing the launch and clearance numbers. He looked from his screen to his CO and then back at the screen. 

“This is a diplomatic UEK mission,” he pointed out. 

“I’ve been told you’re our most promising up-and-coming pilot.”

“This is a diplomatic UEK mission on a rendezvous course with a Martian ship while carrying high ranking diplomatic personnel,” Ashe elaborated, still feeling completely out of his depth. 

“You’d be the secondary pilot, behind a trained and experienced sailor, but we need fresh blood to hit the streets in New York eventually. We can’t just keep relying on our old and faithful sailors because one day they’ll either drop dead, retire, or face a match they can’t win,” his commander explained. 

Ashe nodded slowly. “Okay, so I’m going to fly second-point on a diplomatic mission and you picked me because I’m young?”

“And talented,” she assured. She chuckled. “You know, Ensign, I’m not sure I’ve ever met a UEK officer who tried to talk me out of giving them an assignment that could make the rest of their career.” 

Ashe blushed. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “It’s just a lot.”

She shook her head. “A perfectly reasonable reaction. We’d like to have you shipping out to New York tomorrow. The mission leaves in three days. Is that acceptable to you?”

Ashe nodded. He glanced down at his comm and swiped left to accept the offer. “I’ll be ready,” he assured. 

She smiled. “Excellent. You’re dismissed, Ensign. Good luck.”

Ashe gave her another brief salute before he turned and walked out of her office. He made it most of the way down the hall back to the elevator before the reality of the situation set in and he stopped. “I’m going to fly one of the most important diplomatic missions of the last few years,” he whispered to himself. 

It was simultaneously the most exciting and stomach-turning thing he’d ever heard. 

He was in the elevator back down to ground floor command so that he could go home and clear out his quarters for his departure when his comm buzzed. It wasn’t the official frequency that had pinged though, so he didn’t check it immediately. It was better not to get caught checking encrypted or pirated frequencies in the command building. 

He waved to Irene on his way out and managed to grab a seat on the shuttle that was just about to depart from the front of the building. All the way back to his quarters, the comm felt like it was burning a hole in his pocket. Finally, once he closed his door behind him, he pulled it out. 

It was a comm that had buzzed on a pirated frequency coming out of Hygiea, a Martian colony in the asteroid belt. Ashe stared at it. He’d accidentally found the frequency last week when he had been rewiring a comm and he’d put a line into it out of curiosity more than anything else. Most of the pirated frequencies that he found were just blank abandoned lines from Earth or Mars that didn’t get used. 

He hesitated before he hit play, but eventually, he played the comm. The transmission quality was very low and the picture he got was grainy, but he could make out a young woman with dark hair and darker skin. She looked both angry and terrified. 

" _I know this is a long shot_ ,” the woman began, “ _but I saw activity on this line last week. I can’t use an official channel because Mars controls all of them. Please, whoever this reaches, find us help. Hygiea is starving. They’re starving us out because they think we’re withholding ships and material. We aren’t. We’re starving. Our people are dying, please–_ ” The transmission died abruptly and Ashe felt sick to his stomach. 

Somehow in his dabbling in recoding comm units and finding old signals, he had used an emergency line that had alerted someone on Hygiea who thought he would be able to help them. Ashe sat on his bed and stared at the comm log on his screen.

What was he supposed to do with this?

The log faded into his history and he scrolled through his records to find it again. He hesitated briefly, one of his other old received transmissions catching his eye. It was a broadband shout that had gone out from Ceres Station a few weeks back, calling for the Outer Colonies to unite into their own pseudo nation. And there were still protests ongoing on Ceres and spreading to other closely allied Outer Colonies like Vesta and Ganymede. 

If Hygiea needed help and that help sure as heck couldn’t come from Earth, for risk of igniting a serious conflict between the two planetary powers, then maybe it could come from Ceres. 

Ashe found the comm log for the transmission from Hygiea and forwarded it along the broadband shout frequency he’d received the propaganda update on. He could only hope that it would reach its desired destination. Hopefully, whoever was inciting a Colony Rebellion could provide the aid that the woman from Hygiea had begged for. There wasn’t much else he could do. 

In the meantime, he had a deployment to pack for. 

* * *

**NEW YORK CITY, EARTH**

The shuttle doors hissed as they opened. Annette startled in her seat, having half-dozed off. She fumbled with her buckle, struggling to open it for a minute. As she floundered, someone else leaned over and neatly unfastened her restraints. Annette blinked and stared at the open buckle before looking at the person who had helped her. 

The woman was wearing a neatly tailored Navy uniform and had blonde hair that was pulled out of her face in a neat bun. She was taller than Annette by around four inches, but the way that she carried herself made her seem much taller. It also wasn’t particularly hard to be taller than Annette. 

“Oh, thank you!” Annette said, standing up and picking up her bag. 

The woman smiled. “You looked like you were struggling a bit there.” 

Annette felt her ears turn red. “I’m not used to shuttles,” she admitted bashfully. 

The woman laughed. “I could kind of tell, no offence.”

Annette brushed aside a strand of her hair. “Yeah, that’s fair.” She took in the woman’s Navy uniform. It took her a second, but she recognized the piping on the jacket and she stiffened. “You’re a Marine!” she exclaimed. 

The woman blinked, a bit surprised and touched the red lining on her jacket. “Oh, yes, I am. I’m Ingrid.”  
  
She offered her hand and Annette shook it. Even Ingrid’s grip was firm and professional. Annette dropped her hand away and stepped towards the exit of the shuttle. Ingrid followed her and the two women disembarked the shuttle together. Annette immediately had to shield her eyes from the sunlight glinting off the UEK building ahead of her. 

When she had stepped off the shuttle’s ramp, she straightened her shoulders and felt a small smile curl on her face. She tightened her grip on her bag’s strap and adjusted her skirt. Ingrid had followed her off the shuttle and paused beside her, smiling at Annette. 

“Been to New York before?” the Marine asked. 

Annette laughed nervously. “No, actually. I’m from Vancouver, this is my first time here.”

Ingrid took in her business-appropriate outfit and her official UEK badge. “HQ staff?”

“Uh, secretary actually,” Annette corrected. “I thought it was a long shot when I applied, but apparently not! I’m actually Cornelia Arnim’s new personal assistant.”

Ingrid raised an eyebrow. “Wow, I didn’t even know the Secretary-General was getting a new assistant.” She hesitated, looking around the courtyard that they stood in. “Are you reporting in right now?”

Annette glanced at her watch. “I’m, uh, actually not even working until tomorrow. I just wanted to come in and get settled a bit today.” 

Ingrid smiled and nodded. “Well, I don’t have to head to training until 12, so would you like to get a cup of coffee?”

Annette brightened. The opportunity to talk to a Marine who was both polite and also a woman? And she didn’t even have to extend the invitation? “I’d love to!”

Ingrid laughed, sounding a bit relieved. “Oh, uh, great!” She bit her lip and Annette was surprised to see her cheeks pinken. “Sorry, I don’t have a lot of female friends and you seem very sweet.”

Annette giggled. “I can imagine there aren’t many women in the Marine Corps.”

Ingrid nodded. “That is indeed the case. Even all of my childhood friends are boys, so I don’t have much luck in that department either. But, let’s grab a coffee. The cafe in the lobby is surprisingly good.”

Annette trailed after the Marine, smiling. She was definitely nervous to be in New York since it was the first time she had really been away from her mother. She’d gone to university back home so she hadn’t had to move away then, but her mother had urged her to go be the little fish in the big pond in the city so that she could build her resume. It had never been a secret that Annette wanted to work for the UEK, so having been hired as the assistant to the Secretary-General of the Security Council was such a huge win that she absolutely couldn’t turn it down. 

“If you don’t mind me asking, what drove you to join the Marines?” Annette asked as they crossed into the main building. 

Ingrid touched the insignia on her chest and smiled faintly. “My father was a Navy Captain. He’s a general now, but he’s retired from service. One of my brothers is a commander and the other two are both lieutenant commanders. We have a family history of service.”

“And you picked the Marines?”

Ingrid’s smile dropped a bit. “That was the child in me, actually. My fiancé was a Marine. We’d been friends since we were children and I enlisted alongside his brother a few years after he did.”

A quick glance at Ingrid’s left hand told Annette that she definitely wasn’t married and didn’t appear to even be wearing the engagement ring anymore. The way that she spoke of her fiancé, specifying the _was a Marine_ , gave Annette a pretty good indication of what had happened. 

“My father was a Master Sergeant in the Marine Corps,” Annette said, changing the subject so that she didn’t make Ingrid talk about her probably dead fiancé. 

Ingrid paused. “Really? I probably know him.”  
  
Annette shifted, wincing. “He, uh, he was on the Venus mission last year.”

Ingrid’s eyes widened. “Oh, I’m so sorry! This conversation is a disaster, oh no.”

Annette giggled. She touched Ingrid’s arm. “It’s okay, I kind of started it, so don’t worry. My dad and I were never particularly close. He was away on a lot of deployments.”  
  
They reached the cafe line-up and stood together in the queue. Ingrid looked thoughtful for a moment before she snapped her fingers.   
  
“Master Sergeant Pronislav! I can definitely see him in you,” Ingrid said. “He was never my direct CO, but I only ever heard good things about how dedicated he was. Plus, he was a valued member of the Security Council, wasn’t he?”

“Interim seat,” Annette confirmed. “He stepped down from the council when they created the Venus probe mission to be its commander.” She frowned. “That didn’t end up working out so well for him.”

“I’m sorry, Annette,” Ingrid said quietly. 

They were suddenly at the front of the line for the cafe and Annette quickly ordered a small vanilla latte. She handed over the money for it and walked around to wait at the end of the drink bar. Ingrid followed her a moment later. Annette was about to say something else to continue their conversation when her eyes were caught by the holoscreen above the counter. 

It was showing the newsfeed describing the mission that had departed the day before to meet a Martian envoy. Annette had been following the story out of curiosity mostly because it was very rare for the UEK Prince to be directly involved in off-planet missions, especially ones that related to Mars while tensions between the two planets were still high after Emperor Edelgard’s ascension. 

Ingrid noted where Annette’s attention had been drawn and she tipped her head thoughtfully. Currently scrolling on the screen was the list of personnel that had been on board the Prince’s ship. There were two pilots, a Marine squad, the Prince’s personal guard, and of course, the Prince himself. 

Annette looked at Ingrid. “Do you know the Marines that went up there?”

Ingrid nodded. “Well, I know the Staff Sergeant. I don’t know any of his team personally, but Felix and I are good friends. We, well, we’ve been friends since childhood and we enlisted together.”

Annette’s name was called and she quickly grabbed her coffee. She took a sip and sighed as the caffeine and the sugar hit her taste buds. It was completely impossible that just a sip of coffee was enough to truly stimulate a person, but some days it sure felt like one sip was enough when it counted. 

Annette hovered by the hand-off plane while Ingrid waited for her own coffee. The sergeant on the mission and Ingrid had enlisted together which probably meant that he was the brother of Ingrid’s previous fiancé. It would be an honour to fly with the prince. Annette’s stomach flipped excitedly as she realized that if everything went to plan, with her job, she would probably get to meet the prince herself. 

Ingrid’s name was finally called and her americano was handed off. The Marine grabbed it and turned to Annette. Annette was about to suggest that they grab a table in the cafe when the holoscreen above the counter blinked off. It came back to life after a second, now displaying a breaking news story. 

The dark-haired reporter on the screen looked frightened and uncertain. “ _We have just received confirmation of an explosion that detonated in the neutral space set for the Earth-Mars rendezvous mission._ ”

Chairs screeched on the floor as patrons of the cafe shot to their feet, now suddenly paying attention. Annette’s breath caught in her chest and she nearly dropped her coffee. Her gaze was fixed on the screen and she felt like she couldn’t breathe. 

“ _The UEK has just confirmed that the detonation target was the UEN Fhirdiad, the vessel carrying His Royal Highness Prince Dimitri and his escort team to the diplomatic meeting. We do not have confirmation at this time if the cause of the explosion was from a drive malfunction or from an external source, but rumours indicate that it is likely this is a strike against Earth by Mars._ ”

Ingrid was staring at the screen, her hand over her mouth in horror. “No,” the Marine murmured. 

Annette placed her coffee cup down on the counter before she could drop it. She wrung her hands together and exhaled shakily. If this really was a strike against Earth by Mars, it was a damn effective one. An attack like this could lead to an interplanetary war. 


	3. Three - Ruined Sky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Salvage is recovered from the wreckage of the UEN Fhirdiad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to come out on Saturday or Sunday, but the Sylvgrid discord told me it should come out today and I am weak.

Three - Ruined Sky

* * *

**NEW YORK CITY, EARTH**

Ingrid was in the training hall when Rodrigue finally found her. She had already beaten one punching bag long and hard enough that a patch on it tore and sand spilled out. The training hall coordinator had glared at her for that, so she’d pulled it off the hook and deposited it on the side of the room, taking a new bag and continuing right on from where she had left off. 

Her knuckles were throbbing, even through her gloves, as she went through her motions. Her shoulders were starting to ache from the strain of her workout, but she didn’t want to stop. She had to be moving otherwise she’d be thinking and she really, really didn’t want to be thinking about anything other than slamming her fists against the vinyl covering of the punching bag. 

She didn’t notice Rodrigue when he first arrived because of her headphones that were playing music that effectively drowned out the sounds around her. He ended up having to tap her shoulder to get her attention. Ingrid, startled, spun and almost socked the Admiral in the face, but he neatly deflected the blow, proving that his reflexes from his own term as an active officer were still very much intact. 

Ingrid immediately dropped her hands and straightened her back, offering a brief salute to him. 

“At ease, Marine,” Rodrigue said. 

Ingrid loosened her posture and sighed. “Sorry,” she apologized. 

He shook his head. “You’re on edge, it’s alright. I think we all are.”

Ingrid fidgeted with her gloves and eventually pulled on the tie to loosen them so that she could remove them. “I almost punched a CO. I don’t think that’s a particularly good look for me.”

Rodrigue reached for her hand and gently tugged her glove off for her. He frowned at the angry red abrasions on her knuckles. His gaze flickered to the destroyed punching bag at the side of the room. “Ingrid,” he began. 

She pulled away from him and pulled her other glove off. She reached up and unhooked the bag, dragging it to the side of the room. She brushed her hands off, dusting the chalk onto her leggings. She pulled her hair loose of her ponytail and flipped her head upside down, gathering her hair into a bun to keep it off of her sweaty neck. 

Rodrigue followed her to the edge of the room. “You rejected the summons yesterday,” he pointed out. 

Ingrid frowned. “I requested a delay on my next deployment. Apparently intense emotional loss allows me to qualify for that.”

“Ingrid,” Rodrigue’s voice was stern and she finally made eye contact with him. “I understand where you’re coming from.” His voice wavered. “Felix is the second son I’ve lost. And Dimitri was like a son to me as well. I promised his father I would look after him.”

Ingrid dropped her gaze, feeling her eyes burn. It had been a week and a half since someone had blasted the UEN Fhirdiad to bits in neutral space and the UEN salvage team was still combing through the wreckage, looking for bodies or control systems that might help them understand what had happened. It had been a week and a half since two of her close friends, plus an entire team of Marines had been blown up. Based on the state of the explosion, the salvage team had estimated no survivors, but they had yet to prove that there were no emergency pods launched. 

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled. 

“Mars is still maintaining that they weren’t behind the attacks. The Emperor’s aide sent us an official transmission today stating that Mars didn’t fire on the ship. They attached all of their official launch records,” Rodrigue explained. 

Ingrid scowled. “Well, we’re damn sure it wasn’t a reactor failure! And no one from the Outer Colonies has that kind of firepower, so who else could it have been?”

Rodrigue folded his arms. “We still haven’t been able to get a trace on the missiles. There is no proof in the Martian launch records that they were fired from Mars, Deimos, or Phobos.”

“You haven’t been able to get a trace on them?” Ingrid asked, fixating on the detail. “Couldn’t you pick up their transponder signals? There’s no way they were dispersed in the explosion. Surely one of the techs here could decode them if they were encrypted, right?”

Rodrigue’s lips pressed together and Ingrid caught on. Her eyes widened and she rubbed her forehead, feeling bewildered. 

“That’s not possible,” she argued. 

“It’s the only explanation,” Rodrigue affirmed. “We haven’t been able to trace the transponder codes because they were disabled.”  
  
She shook her head. “That’s stealth tech. That’s crazy, bat-shit impossible stealth tech. No one has developed that yet. There’s no way to control the target lock of a missile without a transponder. Whoever fired that would have had no way to ensure it stayed on target.”

“We’ve known this was coming,” Rodrigue pointed out. “We’ve been able to semi-cloak our own satellites for a few years now. Mars has a damn good science team employed as well. It’s time to consider that that kind of tech is amidst us.”

Ingrid crossed her arms. “So even though Mars sent us their launch records, there’s a fair chance that they still fired the missiles that killed Dimitri and Felix. Surely there’s enough there for us to retaliate at least a little?”

Rodrigue rubbed his chin. “In normal circumstances, yes. But, we have to be cautious now. We don’t know if Mars fired the missiles and we don’t know if they have more cloaked nukes. We have techs running analysis to see what our losses would be if we chose to retaliate now.”

It was scary to consider that there could be nuclear warheads just waiting to crash down to Earth and to wipe out millions of people. Ingrid didn’t want a war with Mars. War meant that thousands of sailors on both sides would die. It meant that hard decisions would have to be made which could lead to thousands or millions of civilian deaths. But, she was angry and grieving and it was hard not to feel frustrated at the UEK Security Council’s tentative approach to the situation. 

She straightened her shoulders and looked back at Rodrigue. “You seemed particularly concerned that I dismissed summons yesterday. Did you need something?”

He pulled out a comm and handed it to her. On the screen was a mission statement. Ingrid stared at it. She read the title of it again, just to be sure that she had seen it correctly. When she was sure that she had, she stared at Rodrigue. 

“What is this?”

“A mission.”

Ingrid frowned. “This is a trip scheduled to Mars. Why are we sending a diplomat to Mars? That has to be a suicide mission at this point.”

“This is a chartered mission that occurs every few months. It is necessary to ensure that Mars knows we are not afraid of them and what we think they could do to us. It will be a week only and mostly meetings with aides and ministers of the Emperor, but it had to be carried out,” Rodrigue explained. 

“Why are you showing it to me?”

“Because, Gunny,” Rodrigue said, pulling out her position’s nickname, “the Council elected to send a team of Marines down there. You’re the most efficient fighters and our best option to protect our citizens.”

Ingrid felt dizzy. “You want my team on this mission,” she said, unravelling Rodrigue’s cryptic explanation. 

“Yes.” 

“No way,” Ingrid replied instantly. “Send me to Ceres, send me to Ganymede, or literally anywhere else. I’m not going to Mars unless we’re going to war.”

“I thought you might say that. Look at the crew list, please,” Rodrigue said, gesturing to the comm she was still holding. 

Ingrid swiped down, pulling up the personnel list. She almost immediately felt sick. “Tell me this is a joke?”

“Andre confirmed it this morning.”

“Is he out of his mind? Two of our friends were just blasted to bits by Mars and _he_ wants to go on the diplomatic mission?” Ingrid demanded.

“Will you do it?”

Ingrid hesitated. She still didn’t want to go anywhere near Mars, but she didn’t want to lose any more friends. Plus this was the kind of mission that would get her on the promotional path to Master Sergeant someday. And, if the mission turned out to be peaceful, she could at least say that she was one of few UE Marines who had gotten to walk on the surface of the red planet. 

She swiped to accept the offer and her own comm buzzed nearby in her bag. She handed the comm back to Rodrigue. “If I’m doing this, I want my power armour upgrade accelerated so that it will be updated by the time we leave.”

He nodded. “I’ll see that it gets taken care of today. The mission departs in four days. Ingrid, thank you. Andre will be glad to know it’s you who is playing escort.”  
  
“My father won’t be.”

“I can handle Valen. He requires a less delicate touch than Andre.”

Before either of them could say anything else, their comms chimed with the UEK broadband alert. Ingrid turned and snatched her comm, pulling up the alert. It was a news update from the UEN salvage team. She whipped her head to stare at the Admiral.

Rodrigue had gone completely white while reading the alert. “That’s impossible.”

* * *

**VICTORIA, MARS**

Dorothea’s heels clicked as she strode down the hall. She was scrolling through the Earthen news report on her datapad with a furrowed brow. The feed kept refreshing as new information was added. It wasn’t on any Martian channels yet, so they were operating on the 14-minute delay between Earth and Mars. 

She paused outside the council room and knocked on the door firmly, barely tearing her eyes from the report. Someone called for her to enter and she pushed open the doors. The Emperor was standing at the far side of the room, looking at a ship manifest of Earthen ships in Mars’s extended AO. 

“Have you seen this?” Dorothea asked, forgoing a greeting in favour of gesturing to her datapad. 

Hubert scowled at her, but Dorothea ignored him. There would be time for decorum and politeness later when there wasn’t urgent news to discuss. 

“Seen what?” Edelgard asked, placing her palms on the table. 

“May I?” she asked, gesturing to the hologram in the centre of the room. Edelgard nodded and Dorothea raised her datapad, tapping a few keys before launching her newsfeed onto the projection. 

Immediately, the Earthen reporter’s voice filled the room. “ _We have an update on the report received from the UEN salvage team. While investigating the rubble of the UEN Fhirdiad, the UEN Machi reported that they had detected a sign of life. On a comb-through of the rubble, they have confirmed recovery of a UEMC Staff Sergeant._ ”

Edelgard looked shocked. “Pause,” she ordered and the newsfeed froze. She looked at Dorothea. “What’s the delay on this?”

Dorothea checked the clock on the corner of her datapad. “Regular Earth to Mars delay of 14 minutes plus seven for the piggy-backed transmission.”

“How did our scanners not pick up anything? If that Marine was floating in open space he should be dead,” Edelgard said, sounding troubled. 

Dorothea resumed the broadcast and the reporter’s story continued. “ _Initial reports show that the Marine is wounded, but he had been protected from the vacuum thanks to his power armour which had engaged survival mode when he was jettisoned from the wreckage of the UEN Fhirdiad_.”

“Power armour,” Hubert mused. “I suppose that makes sense. Can you run a scan of our IO channels for any updated UEK announcements? I want to know this sergeant’s name and status.”

“On it,” Dorothea agreed. 

She dismissed the news story and pulled up the log of Martian Intelligence networks that were broadcasting from Earth. They kept having to update their encryption software, thanks to Earth’s own spy networks, but they still had a handy number of channels that were open. True to Hubert’s prediction, there was a newly published UEK report about the salvage mission. 

She threw it up onto the hologram and she, Hubert, and Edelgard watched as Secretary-General Cornelia Arnim appeared before them. 

“ _I have an urgent status update from the crew of the UEN salvage missions on fleet ships UEN Machi, UEN Hornby, and UEN Aegis. According to transmissions received from the UEN Machi, the salvage team has recovered one of the UEMC soldiers who had been deployed on the mission. We are pleased to share the news that Staff Sergeant Felix Fraldarius was safely brought on board the UEN Machi. Sergeant Fraldarius was found in open space, protected by his UEMC Power Armour. He is currently receiving necessary medical attention and will return to Earth in five days when the salvage mission is completed._ ”

“Someone survived that explosion,” Edelgard murmured, sounding awed. “The main reactor on the Fhirdiad went down as soon as the missiles struck. I suppose if he had already been on the exterior of the ship, that might explain it.”

“Remember, Your Majesty, there has still been no confirmation that there were no crafts launched from the Fhirdiad before contact,” Hubert pointed out. 

Dorothea dropped Secretary-General Arnim’s report to her datapad, allowing the previous hologram of Mars’s AO to return to the screen. She studied it for a moment. “Show the contact site,” she told it. 

The hologram twisted, zooming in to an area of space at the very edge of Mars’s extended AO. Three green lights blipped into view, labelled Machi, Hornby, and Aegis for the three registered UEN salvage vessels. 

“If those missiles are what we assume them to be,” Edelgard said, “then there shouldn’t have been a way for them to see them coming unless they had external visuals on them. And by that point, it would have been too late for the crafts to launch. There can’t have been any fired. Besides, they probably still would have been vaporized by the radius of the explosion or the shrapnel that resulted.” She waved a hand towards Dorothea’s datapad. “It’s a damn miracle that that Marine’s power armour was enough to protect him from the debris and the explosion.”  
  
Hubert considered her words and Dorothea looked between Edelgard and Hubert. Edelgard was the Emperor of Mars and therefore also the highest power that Dorothea reported to, but Hubert was her direct CO as the head of the Intelligence Operations for Mars. She was the assistant director of their spy network, but Hubert was its ultimate leader. 

“Maybe this is a good thing for us,” Dorothea pointed out. 

Hubert narrowed his eyes again, but Edelgard pressed a hand against her mouth, obviously thinking. After a moment, she nodded slowly. 

“I don’t like it, but you’re right. Whatever happened to the UEN Fhirdiad is still a mystery to Earth. As far as they know, we’ve created stealth missiles that can launch on command to decimate their entire planet. If this Sergeant Fraldarius can give a real explanation to what happened and to take the blame off of us, it will be a good thing.”

“Even if he can testify that it wasn’t us, I’m not sure how much good it will do us,” Hubert argued. “Earth has lost its prince. They are angry and it’s only a matter of time before they lash out.”

“They can’t lash out at us if they don’t have proof,” Dorothea countered. “We gave them our launch logs, that is enough to keep us clear.”

“From direct conflict,” Edelgard corrected. “That is enough to protect Mars as a planet, but if they chose to strike at Callisto? At Io? At Hygiea? That’s harder to predict.”

“We know that Earth is already struggling with control on Ceres. Perhaps they’ll lash out at other Outer Colonies if they think they can get away with it,” Hubert added. 

Dorothea drummed her fingers along her datapad screen. “Well, this is why we have phase two of the plan, right? Security.”

Edelgard nodded. “Everything is in place as it should be, but I can’t help but worry.”

There was a sharp knock on the door and the three of them turned to see a familiar man standing in the doorway of the room. He was wearing the typical uniform of a Martian Navy Captain and he stood tall and straight on the threshold, waiting to be given permission to enter. 

“Ferdinand,” Hubert greeted. “Come in.”

Ferdinand nodded and entered the council room, his eyes taking note of the holographic display currently up. He nodded to Dorothea and Hubert and gave an officer’s bow to Edelgard. “I’m assuming you’ve already been informed of the situation?”

“If you’re talking about that UEMC Sergeant who was recovered by the Machi, then yes, you’re running late, Ferdie. I already brought it up,” Dorothea answered. 

Ferdinand nodded. “Ah, well then it appears I’ve come all this way for no reason.”

“I was going to summon you anyways, it’s alright,” Edelgard assured. She smoothed a hand over the wood of the table and Dorothea noted a hint of worry in her expression. “How is your father?” the emperor continued. 

Ferdinand’s lips pressed together in his discomfort. It was a small tell that probably would have been hidden from anyone but the three people in the room: two highly trained spies and the Emperor herself. “He is settling in at home in Concordia from what my mother says.”

“Do you believe her?” Edelgard pressed. 

Ferdinand sighed. “No.” He glanced at Dorothea and Hubert. “Permission to speak freely?”

“Granted.”

“I wish you would have let me escort him out. When you came to me three months ago and told me what you were planning, I told you I was with you. I don’t think anything could have calmed his ire entirely, but at least if I had done the removal myself, then his anger would be directed at me, not at you,” Ferdinand explained. 

Dorothea rested her hip against the table and assessed Ferdinand. She had once thought of him as a brainless puppet for his father who simply desired to lead Mars into an era of so-called glory, but once Edelgard had brought him into her inner circle because of his military knowledge, something in him had grown up. He had stepped out of his father’s shadow and become a competent commander and key informant for Edelgard. Dorothea liked the new Ferdinand. She had _hated_ the old Ferdie. 

“Do we need to be worried about him?” Hubert asked, folding his arms and looking momentarily troubled. 

Ferdinand shook his head. He glanced at Dorothea and she straightened, meeting his gaze. “No,” Ferdinand assured. “I imagine if he tries to pull anything you’ll hear it from me and the lovely Black Widow.”

Black Widow was the nickname Ferdinand had given Dorothea a few years back because apparently she was a manipulative, conniving, intelligent woman who was very sharp on the uptake. It was the most flattering title she’d ever received. 

She gave Ferdinand a charming smile in return. “That you will. I’ll keep my ears open.”

* * *

**SPACESHIP SEIROS, THE ASTEROID BELT**

“Engage drive and enable artificial grav,” Byleth commanded as she swung her feet towards the deck of the ship. 

“ _Roger. Engaging now_ ,” the ship replied to her. 

Engines whirred as the drive kicked in and her boots thudded to the metal deck. She bent her knees to absorb the impact and caught her hand on the wall to keep from stumbling. She brushed a strand of her dark blue hair out of her face and wiped her grease-stained hands against her jumpsuit. She slid her wrench into the tool bag hanging over her shoulder. 

“Give me diagnostics,” she instructed, fishing her comm out of her pocket. 

The screen blinked on as the diagnostics for the engine scrolled past, showing significant improvements in the fuel usage and responsiveness of the drive. Byleth hummed to herself as she scrolled through it, checking the highlighted areas on the report where she had been performing her checks and adjustments. 

“ _It feels like it’s working well,_ ” the ship said cheerfully. 

Byleth rolled her eyes. “Sothis, you can’t tell the difference between a dirty burn and the cleanest flight we make.”

“ _Aw, that’s a bit harsh, don’t you think? You wouldn’t agree that I’m capable of good work?_ ”

She pulled a hair tie off her wrist and tied her hair in a loose bun and looked directly into one of the cameras in the hallway of the ship. “Sothis, you’re a computer. If we’re talking about a chess game, then, of course, you’re going to be capable of doing well. You can just download every possible chess strategy from your memory banks and you’d be unstoppable. If we’re talking about piloting a ship and staying completely off of both Martian and UEK radars, I’d rather trust my abilities than yours.”

Byleth dismissed the report on her datapad and stretched her shoulders out. “Report looks clean though. How are we on the comms? Still in the dead zone?” 

“ _The only thing from the last week and a half is that one comm that I tracked from Earth to Ceres on the open channel. Otherwise, no official transmission in or out of our area._ ”

Byleth pursed her lips. “Can you give me that comm again? Let me see its route. Actually,” she paused looking around the bay she was in. “I’m coming up to command, just prep it on the holo there.”

Byleth opened the hatch on the cabinet nearby and started placing back the tools she had been using. She fastened them in and closed the plastic covering over them to hold them in place before she shut the cupboard and closed the zero-grav latch which would ensure that it didn’t pop open unintentionally and throw tools everywhere. 

That had happened to her and her father once when she was just a child and once was more than enough for a lifetime. 

She strode down the hallway of the ship, tapping her fingers against her legs as she walked and mentally ran over her checklist: she’d done the engine check, the life support check, and the fuel check. That was everything she needed to do today. She would spend tomorrow working on her green panels in the galley and that would probably take up most of her day. 

She scanned her palm on the access port by the bridge and the door slid open. As she walked inside she could see that Sothis had done as she asked and brought up the comm record on the central hologram. Byleth walked towards it and circled it, studying it. 

“What reason does an Earthen have to drop a comm to Ceres on a broadband shout frequency? It’s not a UEK line even though Ceres is still under UEK control,” she murmured to herself. 

“ _Ceres is still under UEK control for now,_ ” Sothis corrected. “ _I tapped a newsfeed today that shows the protests have only been increasing in frequency and influence since tensions with Mars skyrocketed._ ”

Byleth flicked her wrists, pulling up the sender’s information. “Still, it looks like this comm was sent from a personal comm. Why would a handheld unit be pinging a shout station on Ceres?”

“ _Maybe it’s a Colonist on Earth trying to send a warning to their allies in the Belt_ ,” Sothis offered. 

Byleth shook her head. “No, people from the Outer Colonies can’t be on Earth. The gravity change is enough to give someone Gravity Sickness almost immediately. But, maybe if it was someone on Selene,” she mused. “Sothis, bring up the comm record for Selene.”

“ _Going to need an access code for that one. Looks like the UEK Intelligence Ops finally noticed someone had them tapped._ ”

Byleth sighed. She walked over to the main computer on the command deck and pulled up the locked record. She punched a few commands and let her override software get to work. “You think they’d figure this glitch out eventually. I’ve been pulling this one for almost eight years now.”

She watched as the software loaded through the encoded record. The first bypass released and she had access to most of Earth’s public records. An article popped up and she paused, waving a hand over it to enlarge it and bring it onto the main hologram. 

She skimmed over it and felt her eyebrows rise. “The salvage team actually found something? Sothis, can you scan the article for me?”

“ _You bet._ ” There was a brief pause as Sothis’s AI swept the article for key data points. “ _Looks like a Marine survived the explosion at the UEN Fhirdiad._ ”

“Really? Was he floating solo?”

“ _Looks like it. He was in the UEMC Power Armour which enabled life support to keep him alive as long as it did.”_

Byleth hummed. “Interesting.” She turned back to the console and saw that it had finally cracked through the rest of the security guarding Selene’s transponder logs. Byleth sighed when she saw what she expected: nothing on any encrypted or pirated channels, only official logs between the Selene research station and Earth. “So, it didn’t come from Selene. That means someone on Earth probably pinged it from elsewhere and forwarded it to Ceres. Can you see who received it on Ceres?”

“ _Let me grab that comm channel log_.” The hologram flickered off and changed to a different log for one second before it blinked off entirely. 

Byleth stared at it in surprise. “What happened?”

“ _Interesting,_ ” Sothis said. “ _It appears someone on the channel actively traced my access and locked me out. That’s a manual override that won’t be hackable from here. So, no, I cannot tell you who received the comm on Ceres._ ”

Byleth nodded slowly. “Alright, so someone on Ceres actually knows what they’re doing. Well, I guess I’ll let that one go then. Can you run a scan of the surrounding area? We’re about to enter Pallas’s AO and I want the scan done before we go dark.”

“ _Scanning now_.”

A green light flickered through the command deck as the ship ran its scanners over the surrounding area. Byleth leaned against the console and waited for the affirming yellow flash that would come at the end of the scan, confirming their nearby space was empty. 

However, because today just had to be special, the deck was hit with a blinding blue light instead. Byleth froze, her hands gripping the console in her surprise. 

“Sothis? What’s in our space?” she asked, suddenly feeling nervous. She quickly sat down in the pilot’s chair and brought up the Serios’s external cameras, scanning manually. 

“ _Oh! There’s a short-range UEK drop shuttle at our 4 o’clock. We’ve got a life form too, but it looks like they’re in some kind of medically initiated stasis._ ”

Byleth frowned, considering her options. “What are the odds that a Vesta or Pallas patrol would pick it up?”

“ _Considering how close to Pallas we are right now? If they haven’t found and collected it already? Very close to zero._ ”

“What are the stasis capabilities of a pod like that?”

“ _Two weeks at most. They are short-term emergency launches only equipped on certain UEK vessels._ ”

Byleth sighed and rubbed at her face. “There’s a person on board it. I can’t just leave them.”

“ _You want me to plot a course?”_

“No drive, just thrusters. Can you bubble around it to catch it? I don’t care if you have to bang up some stuff in cargo, just make sure we can catch it.”

“ _Alright, disengaging drive now, prepare for zero-g._ ”

Byleth went weightless and she released her straps, floating up out of the chair. She pushed her way across the command deck and out of the chamber. Once in the hallway, she engaged her grav boots and anchored onto the floor. She jogged through the ship towards the main cargo bay with the biggest doors. 

“How are we doing, Sothis?”

A screeching slam was her response and then suddenly the drive reignited and gravity engaged on the ship. Byleth stumbled and clicked off her boots. 

“ _I got it_ ,” the AI replied cheerfully. “ _Pressurizing the bay now._ ”

Byleth reached the cargo doors and waited until the light above the console flashed green before she pressed the access button and opened the doors. The short-range pod had come slamming into the Seiros without much grace, bashing against one of the walls and tearing some of the plating on the inside of the ship. 

Byleth jogged over to the craft and found the release gauge on the outside of the ship. For caution’s sake, she drew the pistol out from the holster on her hip and stepped on board the pod. It was a single-seat unit with a figure strapped into the seat. 

Byleth approached carefully, but the man was unconscious. She holstered her gun and leaned over him, brushing aside some of his blonde hair. He didn’t stir when she touched him, but his skin was still warm to the touch. It was easy to find a pulse on the side of his neck and it thrummed strongly, confirming that he was still alive. 

“Disengage stasis,” she said to the pod. 

A light blinked on the side of the chair that the man was seated in and she watched as a needle pulled out of his neck. He exhaled sharply but didn’t wake. Byleth studied the man. He was wearing a casual black jacket and slacks, but there was something strangely familiar about him. She lifted her comm up and scanned his face. 

“Sothis, run a scan of the face I just sent you.”

There was an affirmative beep from her comm. Byleth waited, still leaning over the young man. He was so damn familiar-looking, but she couldn’t quite place exactly where she knew him from. 

“ _Hey, Byleth,_ ” Sothis began, sounding as close to nervous as an AI could. “ _Fun news. This pod is registered to the UEN Fhirdiad_.”

Byleth tensed. “That’s the UEN ship that was–”

“ _His face pinged several thousand news sources on Earth and Mars. This is the UEK Prince_.”

Byleth put her face in her hands and swore loudly. 


	4. Four - Catching Embers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Change arrives on Ceres. Sylvain’s mission departs. A medic gets an ID on her mysterious patients.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since I’m still way ahead of where I thought I would be at this point and my braincell is still motivated, take another update free of charge (exemptions may apply for the emotional cost). 
> 
> small note: the reaction to AI Sothis is the most validating and the best feeling. I'm glad that spoke to so many people like it did to me <3

Four - Catching Embers

* * *

**CERES STATION, OUTER COLONIES**

Claude was ambushed almost as soon as he stepped off of the ship. 

“Claude!” 

He winced and turned to face one of his advisors, smiling politely. “Hello Judith,” he greeted. “Do you really have to break my eardrums? Besides,” he glanced around the docks and was surprised to see that no one was casting him a second glance. The rest of the sentence died abruptly.

His smile changed from his practiced politician’s smile to a natural, real smile. He suddenly didn’t care if the whole station could hear Judith yelling at him because it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter if the whole station could hear him getting chewed out because the only ears that were left on the station were _his_. 

Judith stood a few metres away from him, arms folded and looking thoroughly unimpressed. She was scowling at Claude, but he ignored that and strode up to her. He pulled her into a hug. She tensed against him and didn’t return the action so he released her after a second. 

“What are you so pleased about, boy?” she demanded. 

“We’ve done it, haven’t we? The last of the loyalists are gone from Ceres,” he said. 

Judith narrowed her eyes. “You literally just landed and no one on the station has gotten a comm through to you. How could you possibly already know that?”

Claude waved a hand around the dock. “No one is watching me. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Judith, but my face has become a fairly important one to Earth recently. I suppose they’ve finally figured out my role in all of this. Even on Callisto, I knew they were watching. But, you shouted my name for the whole dock to hear and not a single head turned towards us.” He faked a bow. “Therefore, there is no one on the station who would have any reason to watch me.”

Judith sighed. “You’re insufferable.”

“I’m right,” he corrected. He strode towards the exit to the dock and Judith immediately kept pace with him. “So what were you yelling at me for?”

“Received word from Io on something you might find interesting. Apparently that shout you sent out a while back was picked up by someone on Earth,” she explained. 

Claude paused, freezing mid-step. “Someone on Earth tapped the broadband? I thought it was coded to only reach the colonies?”

“Apparently whoever tapped it has a damn good code breaker. Anyway, I flagged that interaction just in case, and sure enough, we received a hit in return from them. It wasn’t a direct shout since it came in on the broadband frequency, so we don’t have an exact time when it was sent yet. You’re going to want to see this.” 

Judith held up her comm. Claude took it and swiped up to play the transmission. On the small screen, the transmission was very blurry but a young woman’s face filled most of the frame. Her expression was a mixture of anger and fear and Claude felt like he recognized her. The moment she started to speak he knew that he did. 

“ _I know this is a long shot_ ,” the woman began, “ _but I saw activity on this line last week. I can’t use an official channel because Mars controls all of them. Please, whoever this reaches, find us help. Hygiea is starving. They’re starving us out because they think we’re withholding ships and material. We aren’t. We’re starving. Our people are dying, please–_ ” The transmission cut out before she was done and Claude frowned. 

“You’ve watched this?” he asked Judith. 

She nodded. “Despicable, isn’t it?” 

Claude handed her the comm back. “That woman is Petra Macneary. She’s the granddaughter of the governor of Hygiea. We met once when she and her grandfather visited Ceres when my mother was still alive.”

“What are you going to do about it?” Judith asked as they resumed walking, heading towards the central part of Ceres. 

“Nothing, right this second,” Claude said. “I want to find out who forwarded this to me and I want to get an encrypted comm to Hygiea.”

“Those people are starving,” Judith argued. 

Claude frowned and stopped abruptly in front of a doorway that led to the office of the governor. “And I’m creating an Alliance of the Outer Colonies while trying not to attract the wrath of Earth and Mars who are much greater military powers than us. If we attempt to take Hygiea, not only will more people die, but we will lose all good standing we have with the other Colonies and we’ll draw further ire from the inner planets.”

“So you’re going to just let them die.”

“I do not intend to _let_ anyone die,” he replied sharply. “I will get the comm to them and I will reroute the smugglers running to Vesta to Hygiea, but I am not going to pressure our completely destabilized, highly temporary Alliance into a military operation we cannot succeed in. They’ll get enough supplies to live on and we’ll curry favour with our current and possibly future allies.”

Judith sized him up. “You sound more and more like your mother every day.”

Claude stepped into the building off the street. “Is that a compliment or an insult?”

Judith didn’t answer and followed him into the office. They made their way to the meeting room that Claude had begun transforming into the headquarters for his operation. Claude stood in front of the table and looked out the window on the other side of the room that looked over the central atrium in Ceres. 

“What’s your plan, Claude? You’re just going to call all the governors of the major Colonies to Ceres every time something needs to be resolved?” Judith asked. 

He shook his head. “No, ideally we’ll create a neutral space where we can meet on even ground.”

“It’s a good plan, but where are you going from here? You can’t just expect Earth and Mars to roll over. We took Ceres but that took years of work. Places like Vesta and Pallas won’t have such an easy time of it and if the Martian response to Hygiea is anything to go by, Callisto and Io may be more trouble than they originally sounded.”

“Lorenz is on his way here,” Claude said suddenly. “Before we can do anything, I need a group of people within this Council that I can trust. That’s a combination of politicians and good people.”

“Since when do you trust a Gloucester?” Judith asked. She looked suspicious of him. 

“I didn’t trust Lorenz’s father, but Lorenz has given me no reason to distrust him. He doesn’t want to be his father, so I’m giving him a chance. Besides, he knows more about Martian politics than I do so he’ll be useful on that front,” Claude explained. He pulled out his comm and sent a message to Hilda asking her to meet him in the meeting room. 

“Why not ask Evangeline? Io is a Martian colony too and there isn’t a years-long history of distrust between the Riegan and Ordelia families,” Judith proposed. 

Claude laughed. “Oh, don’t worry, Judith. I’ve already got Lysithea. She was the one who set up my meeting with Lorenz since he wasn’t going to meet with me if he knew he would be meeting with me.”

A knock at the door drew both Claude and Judith’s attention and Claude smiled when he saw the woman standing in the doorway. She had short, bright orange hair that was buzzed on the sides and longer on top and tanned skin that stuck out against the white shirt she was wearing. She leaned against the doorframe and grinned slyly at Claude.  
  
“I heard someone was in need of an informant,” she said cheerfully. 

Claude smirked. “Hello Leonie, always a pleasure to see you.”

Leonie nodded to Judith as she strode into the room. “I’ve been out for a couple of years now, but you already knew that. I can give you as much information on Pallas and Vesta as I have, but most of it is pretty common.”

Claude shook his head. “Funnily enough, Leonie, I didn’t comm you for you to be an informant. You were a soldier in the UEN. That’s why I called you. You have experience leading troops and I would trust you might be interested in getting back into that business.”

Leonie leaned against the table and studied Claude. “That’s a fair guess,” she agreed. “Who else are you bringing in?”

Claude swiped something on his comm and activated the hologram in the room. Six faces appeared, their records listing out beneath them. “You and me, obviously, and then we have Hilda and Lorenz, of course. We have Lysithea from Io who is a tech genius, Raphael from right here on Ceres who’s got a few years of service under his belt, Ignatz from Ceres who will hopefully be our dedicated pilot, and then the lovely and sweet Marianne from Vesta. She’s Beau Edmond’s daughter, but she’s also a trained field medic.”

Leonie glanced at Judith. “What about you, Daphnel? Are you joining Claude’s inner circle?”

Judith laughed and looked at the roster that was displayed on the hologram. “I’ll be around for sure, but I think I’ll let you kids have all the fun.”

* * *

**NEW YORK CITY, EARTH**

“You remember what we talked about?” Andre asked, his face a mask of neutrality. 

Sylvain gave him an easy smile. “Of course I do. I’ve got your talking points to review on the trip over. No concessions, but no animosity.”

His father didn’t smile, but there was the tiniest glint of approval in his eyes. Sylvain knew it was the best he was going to get from a man who had spent so many years in a precarious game of politics that he didn’t have any real personality left: all that was there was the mask he wore for politics and the empty shell underneath. 

Sylvain nodded to his father and started to walk away when Andre reached out and grabbed him by the arm. It was a tight grip, not painful, but tighter than necessary. Sylvain turned back to his father and waited for him to say something. 

“Don’t be stupid up there. I will not be there to protect you.”

Sylvain looked his father up and down. This was the same man who had forcefully ended Sylvain’s military career when he was 21 despite Sylvain’s wishes to stay and fight. It was the same man who had hardly said a word to his mother in the last three years. There was no love behind the words, only a sharp warning. 

Sylvain ripped his arm free, ignoring his father’s resistance. He tilted his head up and stared his father down. “I haven’t needed your protection in a long time,” he replied coolly. 

With that, he pivoted and walked towards the shuttlecraft that would take him up to the UEN Vaughn, the ship he would be a passenger on for his first trip to Mars. Sylvain boarded the shuttle and ignored the curious looks from the Navy sailors around him. He walked over to the window on the shuttle and looked out it towards the Martian Embassy. 

“I always thought it would be Felix who eventually told his father to stuff it first,” a familiar voice said, interrupting his peaceful thought process. 

Sylvain turned, feeling surprise crawl across his face. He blinked stupidly at the woman who stood behind him for a minute. He was about to ask her what she was doing there when she beat him to it. 

“Who did you think was going to be escorting you? A bunch of no-name green sailors?” 

Ingrid put a hand on her hip and stared at him challengingly. Sylvain shook his surprise away and took her in. She was wearing the undersuit for her power armour which was almost entirely form-fitting–a win for his gutter brain–and her blonde hair was tied up into a ponytail. She looked irritatingly relaxed, but he supposed that he was the one with less space experience and the one who hadn’t known the plan in its entirety. 

“Isn’t it a waste of your team’s skill to escort a diplomatic mission?” Sylvain asked instead, leaning against the wall casually. 

Ingrid shrugged. “Honestly, probably. But, with things as they are, the Council didn’t want to send a diplomatic mission to what could be hostile grounds without some insurance.”

“And a five-foot, five-inch blonde soldier is the solution?” he teased. 

Ingrid bristled. “I could throw you over my head and not break a sweat, Sylvain,” she said roughly. 

He held up his hands, smirking. “Calm down, Gunny, it was just a joke.”

Ingrid crossed her arms and glared at him. “Like it or not, it’s my job to keep you safe on this mission.”

“Does that mean you have to come to all my boring political meetings with me?” he asked. 

Ingrid sighed. “Unfortunately.”

Sylvain laughed. “Oh, that’s going to be good.”

“I can be diplomatic.”

“You can, but you’re also a Marine whose first priority is the safety of her team and the safety of Earth,” Sylvain countered. 

“You’re the one who went into politics,” she rebuffed. 

Sylvain studied her. “Right,” he agreed. He had almost forgotten that she didn’t know the whole story behind that and a part of her blamed him for what had happened after he had left the Navy. 

He pushed off the wall and looked at the Martian Embassy again. “Finally get to see what ours looks like on their planet. I’ve had quite enough of staring at this building. It’s not even architecturally pretty.”  
  
“It’s not supposed to be pretty. It’s supposed to be a safe space for Martians who visit Earth,” Ingrid said plainly. “I’m sure ours on Mars isn’t much better.”

Sylvain fell silent for a moment. A launch warning echoed around the ship, advising all personnel to get strapped in within the next ten minutes. He shifted his weight and studied Ingrid again. She stood with her back straight and her hands clasped behind her back in the image of the perfect soldier. She had always been the best of them at that part. 

“We’re going to miss his return,” he said quietly. 

Ingrid’s shoulders tensed in surprise, but she dropped her hands to her sides and looked away from him. “He’ll understand.”

“Maybe,” Sylvain agreed. “He’ll be pissed at us, but then again, we don’t even know what shape he’ll be in when he comes back.”

Ingrid glared at him. “He’s coming back,” she said firmly. “That’s what we have to be grateful for now.”

Sylvain ran a hand through his hair. Even thinking about the UEN Fhirdiad made him feel sick to his stomach. His father had been right to vote against Dimitri’s plan. Sylvain understood the necessity of the mission, as well as Dimitri’s argument, but the selfish part of him wished that Dimitri could have been selfish for once in his life and sent literally anyone else on the mission. 

There was always risk involved in politics. Dimitri’s parents had been killed by bitter and angry rebels, after all, but there wasn’t any reason for him to have stuck his head out. Except, Sylvain _knew_ Dimitri was right. Emperor Edelgard wouldn’t have respected any other display. Dimitri putting his life on the line had been a show of strength that Mars had taken advantage of by blowing him to pieces in space. It was a horrible echo to the way his parents had died and Sylvain was getting tired of all the news sources and stories running that compared the two tragedies. 

“Sylvain?” Ingrid prompted, snapping him out of his reverie. 

Sylvain plastered on his fake smile. “Yeah?”

Her lips pressed together as she studied his expression, no doubt taking him apart as she always seemed capable of doing. “Rodrigue asked me to take this mission,” she said finally. 

Sylvain frowned. “What? Why?”

She stepped closer to him and pressed her finger against his shoulder, her expression serious. “Because, you fool, at the time we were all operating under the assumption that Felix was dead and he’s tired of outliving us.”

Sylvain lowered his head a bit. He knew that it hurt to lose friends, but he didn’t want to imagine the kind of pain that Felix’s father had gone through when the news had first broken. Rodrigue had already lost his wife and eldest son and the destruction of the Fhirdiad had meant the death of his second child as well as a young man who he considered another child. 

“Right,” he mumbled. 

Ingrid bit her lip, the sternness in her expression draining a bit. “We should get strapped in,” she suggested. She stepped back from him, but stayed focused on his face. 

He nodded and brushed past her to the row of seats in the centre of the ship. He sat down and pulled the overhead restraint into place. He rested his head back against the headrest, making sure it was at the right height and then fastened the buckle around his waist. Wordlessly, Ingrid took the seat next to him, strapping herself in with practiced ease.

Struck by something, he dropped his arm onto the armrest between them and held his hand out, palm up. Ingrid took his hand and squeezed it once. She didn’t withdraw immediately and Sylvain held on as long as she let him. The shuttle doors hissed closed and the computer announced the pressurization of the cabin. 

“Why did your father want you to take his place?” she asked quietly. 

Sylvain hesitated. He had had an idea of why since the Fhirdiad had been blown up, but he hadn’t dared to vocalize it. 

“I think he knew the Fhirdiad was going to end badly,” he confessed, his voice almost a whisper. “And I think he assumes that this mission isn’t going to go much better.”

Ingrid tensed beside him. “Sylvain,” she said urgently. 

He laughed shortly. “Come on, you have to have considered it. I know you Marines are bringing your armour. That at least indicates some awareness.”

She sighed. “I’m trying really hard not to think about the fact that we’re flying into enemy territory and possibly right into a trap.”

He squeezed her hand again. “That makes two of us.”

* * *

**CENTRAL PALLAS, OUTER COLONIES**

“Curfew begins at 7 today!” an officer shouted. 

Mercedes pulled her shawl tighter over her shoulders and frowned. The officer was standing on a crate in the middle of the central square. He was carrying a shock baton and wearing a bulletproof vest. There were four other officers on the ground around him, carrying the circular riot shields that seemed to be standard-issue amongst Pallas’s officers these days. 

There had been a protest in the square the night before. It hadn’t turned violent, but there had been a number of arrests made. Mercedes had heard the shouting from her apartment for most of the night. It would have kept her up if she hadn’t already been suffering from a painfully sleepless night. 

She slipped through the crowd of people gathered in the square, heading towards the med bay of Central Pallas. She was almost out of the square when someone grabbed her upper arm roughly, nearly jerking her off her feet. She stumbled and turned to find an officer in full riot gear: mask and all. 

“I’m on the medical staff here,” she explained, lifting the edge of her shawl to expose the medic’s insignia that was sewn onto the breast pocket of her grey top. 

The man released her. His voice sounded robotic from the transmitter in his helmet when he spoke: “Priority flags are still on law enforcement personnel and Earthen citizens.” His gaze darted to the left side of her neck and his posture tensed as he recognized the marking that she had there. “Martian,” he added, almost sneering it. 

Mercedes kept her head up and nodded politely to the officer before she walked into the medical bay. The white doors hissed open and closed behind her. Mercedes exhaled shakily, pressing her palm to her heart. Her heart was beating a little faster than normal and she closed her eyes, taking a few breaths to try and calm herself. 

“Are you alright, Mercedes?”

She opened her eyes and saw Tia, one of the station nurses looking at her with concern. 

“I’m alright, thank you,” she assured quickly, dropping her hand to her side. 

Tia put a hand on her hip and stared at her. “Are you sure? You kind of look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Mercedes laughed lightly. She pulled her shawl off, folding it up. She walked over to the storage cubbies that were used by the staff and placed it inside an unoccupied one. Tia trailed after her, and Mercedes smiled politely. 

She tapped the UEK Medic crest on her shirt and then gestured to her neck. “Seems like the officers aren’t really sure what to make of me these days.”  
  
Tia’s gaze softened. “You could always cover it with make-up or something.”

Mercedes shrugged. “It doesn’t cover very well. It ends up looking like I had a particularly salacious encounter if it gets the tiniest bit smudged. Besides, I’m not ashamed of my nationality.”  
  
“You’re a brave woman, Mercedes. Walking freely on an Earthen colony with a Martian tattoo? That’s something not a lot of people would feel comfortable doing.”

Mercedes looked past Tia into the med bay. Of the forty or so beds available, about 15 of them were occupied. There were four officers, seven protestors, three dock and workplace accidents, and Mercedes’s two strangest patients. Two of the protestors and one of the dock workers were Martian-born, so she certainly wasn’t the only transplanter on the station. 

“I think it helps them too. They get to see that Mars and Earth can work together even if it's just because the UEK accepted a Martian into their Medical program,” Mercedes explained. 

She walked over to the desk and picked up the clipboard that had the test results she had ordered yesterday for her patients. She flipped to the second to last chart and frowned. She tapped the ID field on it and looked to Tia.

“We still can’t get an ID on these two?”

Tia shrugged. “They must have tampered with the chips. Their IDs are absolutely fried.”

Mercedes hummed, checking the vital reports for the two men. “They’re not spoofers?”  
  
“No, there is just no data recorded on either of their chips.” Tia paused. “I supposed they could be from Earth. Their chips can often lose signal in the Belt so maybe that’s why.”

She glanced across the med bay to where the two men lay on side-by-side cots. “Can you see if you can get a transponder in? Maybe if we amplify it we can get a scan.” She flipped back to the front page of her charts. “I’m going to make my rounds.”

Mercedes hummed quietly to herself as she moved through the bay, smiling at patients who were awake and checking the vitals on ones who weren’t. She upped the painkiller dosage on one of the officers who was grimacing in his sleep and his features relaxed after a moment. One of the protestors was shooting nasty looks at another one of the officers. Mercedes drew the curtains shut around the officer’s bed to break the eye contact. She gave the protestor a stern look and he cowed, looking sheepishly down at the thin blanket on his own cot. 

Finally, she reached the far end of the med bay where the two unidentifiable men lay. She checked the smaller man first. He was breathing evenly and deeply and the deep gash on the side of his head was healing well. Mercedes glanced at the uniform that was folded at the foot of the bed. It was clearly a UEN uniform and she could guess that insignia meant he wasn’t particularly high-ranking. His stitched name was charred off so it wasn’t much help. 

She carefully placed her hands on either side of the young man’s head and tipped it side-to-side, ensuring he retained mobility in his neck. His silver hair was mussed from days spent unconscious and lying on a pillow and she smoothed it out instinctually. There was something about the youth of his face that made her uncomfortable. Someone so young shouldn’t have suffered the injuries he did. 

Satisfied that the first man was still as healthy as he could be and was recovering well, she stepped away from his cot, moving up to the other bed. The uniform of this man was different. It was vaguely familiar to Mercedes, but it didn’t look like a standard UEN uniform. She sat on the stool next to the bed and checked this man’s vitals. 

He had suffered a deep injury in his stomach from a piece of shrapnel, but Mercedes had assisted in the operation that had safely removed it and the wound was healing steadily now. She studied the dark skin of his face, pursing her lips. He had had a few gashes on his face too. Most of them were healing to faint red lines, but there was one that still had stitches in it. 

She reached out to touch around the cut to feel for puffiness when the man stirred suddenly, his hand shooting up and grabbing her wrist right before she could touch his face. Mercedes froze, startled, and stared straight into the wide and disoriented green eyes of her patient. His eyes locked on her medic’s crest almost immediately before his grip slackened suddenly, his hand dropping back to the bed, and his eyes closed. 

Mercedes leaned over him, gently touching his shoulder. “Can you hear me?” she asked.

The man’s response was a low groaning sound. She waited patiently as, with great effort, he managed to open his eyes again. He looked less confused now, but there was a lingering level of disorientation in his eyes. 

“Where am I?” he asked in a low, smooth voice. 

He didn’t speak with the lilt common in the Outer Colonies and Mercedes wasn’t surprised. If Tia’s guess was correct, one or both of these young men were probably from Earth. She reached out and touched his hand gently. 

“You’re safe. You’re in the central med bay on Pallas,” she explained calmly. 

His eyebrows knit. “What ha–” he broke off with a cough. The cough was dry as it wracked his body and caused him to wince from the pain of his healing stomach wound. 

Mercedes turned a bit away from him and flicked a dial on the med stand next to him, upping his hydration level. His cough faded and he relaxed against the pillows, breathing heavily. She smiled gently at him. 

“It’s okay, you’re safe,” she assured. 

“How did I get here?” he asked. 

She shifted on her stool so that he could look past her and see the other young man. “You two were recovered from a damaged drop pod near Pallas. It’s been about a week since you were brought in. You were both badly injured.” She took his hand and turned it over, gently tapping the inside of his wrist where his ID chip was located. “Your chips aren’t working. Are you alright if I ask you a few questions?”  
  
He nodded slowly and Mercedes leaned away to pick up her chart, flipping back to his chart. She smiled at him encouragingly. 

“What’s your name?”  
  
“Dedue Molinaro.”

“Where are you from?”

He hesitated, something uncertain settling on his expression. “Earth,” he said after his brief pause. “What is your name?” 

She closed the chart. “I’m Mercedes. I’m a medic.”

He looked troubled now. “What happened to the UEN Fhirdiad?” he asked quietly. 

Mercedes blinked. “The Fhirdiad?” He nodded. She bit her lip and sighed. “It was destroyed. The UEK recovered a Marine from the wreckage. His power armour saved his life. They’re saying that everyone else died when the ship was blown up.”

He looked unsettled and she noticed that his hand balled into a fist atop the thin medical blanket. “Everyone else died,” he echoed. “Oh.”


	5. Five - To War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tensions flare.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not much to say other than the middle scene in this chapter may or may not have inspired the entire story.

Five - To War

* * *

**SPACESHIP SEIROS, THE ASTEROID BELT**

Dimitri woke to a gentle beeping sound that was coming from somewhere to his left. His eyelids felt like they were made of lead and his mouth felt like it was full of sawdust. It took far more effort than he would ever admit, but he managed to force his eyes open. The fluorescent lights forced him to squint blindly as his eyes adjusted. 

After a moment, his vision cleared and he looked around. He was sitting in a med dock, his arm pushed through the pressure band that monitored vitals and gave necessary injections. He shifted, trying to sit up straighter and his muscles groaned in protest. He managed to hit the release on the band and freed his arm. Slowly, he pulled it free, squeezing his hand into a fist to test his mobility. 

There were a few angry red scratches on his arms that had been mostly healed with the help of the med dock. His jacket was missing, as was his button-up, leaving him only in his white undershirt and pants. Even his boots and socks had been removed. Dimitri pushed his legs off the side of the med dock and onto the cold metal floor. 

He removed the probes from his forehead and placed them down on the tray attached to the med dock’s monitor. Dimitri pulled the monitor a bit closer and scanned his reports. Apparently all of his major abrasions were healing well and his head injury had been treated. There were trace amounts of the life support stasis solution still in his system. 

Upon reading that, Dimitri brushed his hand along the back of his neck and found the slightly raised edges of skin where the needle would have pierced his skin for the stasis injection. He swallowed hard and pushed the monitor away. He took a deep breath and stood up from the med dock. Almost immediately, his right leg gave out and he had to catch himself on the seat. 

He cursed under his breath and forced himself back into a sitting position on the bed. He looked around the room, trying to assess where he was. There were four other med docks in the room, all of them unoccupied, and a large supply cabinet. Based on the layout of the room and the way that the cabinet latched, he could make a good guess as to where this room was. 

If his guess was correct, and he was almost hoping it wasn’t, there would be a flag near the door to mark it as such. He carefully tested his legs this time and they didn’t give out immediately so he slowly walked over to the door. To his surprise, in the small ID box by the door, there was no flag, UEK or Martian. 

Before he could consider what that meant for him, the door in front of him slid open. He froze and stared uselessly as the door opened and revealed a woman with navy blue hair and blue eyes. As soon as she saw him, she went completely rigid and they stared at each other for a long moment. 

Dimitri’s instincts jolted his body into motion before his brain caught up and he stepped forward, grabbing her shoulder. He spun her around and tried to pull her into a headlock. She seemed to snap out of her shock when he tried to grab her. She twisted in his grip, reaching up to grab his wrist. As he tried to pull her back to his chest to get leverage, she turned under his arm nimbly and kicked the back of his left leg. 

Dimitri’s leg buckled and she managed to slam him against the wall, still gripping his wrist and staring at him with wide eyes. Dimitri stood, pressed against the wall, staring at the mysterious woman like an idiot. She held him in place for a full second before she dropped his hands and sprang back from him, covering her face with her hands. 

“Oh no,” she mumbled. 

Dimitri rubbed his wrist and stared at her. “Who are you?” he demanded. 

The woman dropped her hands to her sides and straightened up. “Byleth. Byleth Eisner.” By the look on her face, he gathered that she realized that wasn’t exactly what he had meant and she winced. “Look, you were badly hurt. You probably need another full cycle in the med dock.”  
  
Dimitri folded his arms and stared down the woman. She was at least 8 inches shorter than him and she had handily dodged and disabled his attack, despite the fact that he was willing to bet he had more than a bit of a pure physical strength advantage. She had blue eyes, fair skin, and an angular face. She wasn’t particularly intimidating looking, but there was something in the way she held herself while standing and in the fluidity of her motions when she was disabling Dimitri that made him think she was probably much more dangerous than she looked. 

“Byleth,” he said, testing the name. “Where do you hail from?”

She crossed her arms. “Which faction does the ship belong to, you mean?” she asked bluntly. 

Dimitri raised an eyebrow. He had at least tried to be tactful in the way that he had phrased the question, but she cut straight to the point. “Yes,” he conceded. “Do you fly for Earth or Mars?”

Her lips curled into a half-smile and she shrugged. “Neither.”

He frowned. “What does that mean?”

“It means that this vessel is neither a part of the UEK or the Martian Empire,” she continued. 

“How can you not be a part of either? Don’t all ships have to be registered to one or the other, even if they’re from the Outer Colonies?”

Byleth’s smile widened a bit. “If you pick your ports correctly, then technically you can get away with being registered to neither.”

Dimitri was baffled. As far as he was aware, every ship in the system was registered and unregistered vessels were routinely pinged, swept, and then dismantled or impounded. He shook his head, ignoring that thought. “I need to speak to the captain of this vessel. I need to send a tightbeam transmission to the UEK as soon as possible.”  
  
The charming smile on her face disappeared and Dimitri’s stomach twisted. “Technically speaking,” she began, “I’m the captain.”

“Technically speaking?”

She pressed her lips together and shifted her weight. She glanced at the med dock and then back at him. “I still think you need another cycle in the med dock.”  
  
He stared her down and eventually she sighed and fiddled with a lock of her hair, avoiding eye contact with him. 

“I’m the only one on the ship,” she admitted.

Dimitri looked around the med bay. It wasn’t particularly large or impressive, but its size did imply a ship that would probably crew forty people if his estimates were correct. “You’re the only one on board?” he repeated. “How can you be the only one on the ship?”

“Well, technically there’s Sothis, but she doesn’t count as a person.”

“Who’s Sothis?” he asked before he could stop himself. Before she could answer he shook his head and held up his hand. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that transmission. I need to send a transmission to Earth.”

She shook her head. “You can’t.”

He stared at her. “What do you mean I _can’t_?”

“I mean that you can’t. If you attempt to broadcast on a UEN channel, all you’ll do is draw their attention to an unlicensed, unregistered ship who is broadcasting on private channels. They’ll target-lock us and blast us out of existence before asking any questions,” Byleth explained. 

Dimitri rubbed a hand over his face, feeling frustrated. “Can I get one to Mars?” he asked sarcastically. 

She frowned at him. “I wish I could help you. But, Your Highness, it’s–”

He rounded on her when she used his title. “You know who I am.” It wasn’t a question. 

To her credit, she didn’t shrink away from him at all, lifting her chin and holding eye contact with him. “Earthen Prince Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd. Last seen departing Earth on the UEN Fhirdiad for a diplomatic rendezvous with a Martian envoy to discuss the destruction of three of Earth’s spy satellites that had been in orbit around Mars.”

When she mentioned the Fhirdiad, Dimitri stepped away and his back hit the wall. He leaned against it blindly and felt his breathing slow as he tried to put together the thoughts racing through his mind. 

“The Fhirdiad,” he mumbled, his voice sounded rough and almost unlike him. “It was attacked, wasn’t it?”

Byleth didn’t move closer or further away from him, just watching him with curious blue eyes. “Yes,” she said calmly. 

He pressed his hand to his mouth and exhaled shakily. “If you can’t get a message off this ship, can you at least tell me how I got here?”

“I found you floating in a drop shuttle just outside of Pallas’s AO. Your stasis systems were running out and there was a very slim chance that anyone else would have picked you up since drop shuttle transmitters cease functioning after about 12 hours. I collected your ship and brought you on board.”

“I was the only one on the dropship?” Byleth nodded and Dimitri felt ill again. Dedue, Felix, the pilots and the other Marines hadn’t been on board with him. He closed his eyes. 

“Your Highness?” Byleth questioned quietly. 

“I need a moment,” he mumbled. 

His legs gave out before the words were even out of his mouth and he slid down the wall until he was sitting down. He stared blankly forward, but his eyes weren’t focusing on anything so his entire field of vision was fuzzy. He distantly heard her kneel down near him, but Dimitri didn’t react. 

The Fhirdiad had exploded. All of his companions on the Fhirdiad were almost certainly dead and, to make things even worse, everyone probably thought he was dead too and he had no way of letting them know otherwise. 

* * *

**VICTORIA, MARS**

Edelgard was wearing her crown for this. She was wearing a vivid red suit with a white blouse and black stiletto heels. Even with the heels, she was still drastically shorter than Hubert, who stood next to her in all black, save the red and gold Martian pin on his lapel, and Ferdinand, who was wearing a simple light grey suit. 

Hubert looked the calmest of the three of them externally, but Edelgard was ready. She had been waiting for this moment for years and she wasn’t going to let it pass her by. She pressed her hands flat against the legs of her pants and took a deep breath. 

“Ready, Your Majesty?” Ferdinand asked. 

Edelgard nodded. “Yes,” she confirmed. “I do still wish that we were dealing with Andre Gautier, not his son. I have met the elder Gautier so at least I know what to expect with him.”

Hubert chuckled darkly. “I don’t think you have much to worry about, Lady Edelgard. According to his reputation, we may actually see benefit from having the foolish son here instead of his father.”

“He has a reputation?” Ferdinand inquired. 

“Not a flattering one,” Edelgard hummed. “A philanderer and a show-off. He’s probably more concerned about his image than the politics he was sent here to discuss. You’re right, Hubert.”

Ahead of them, across the courtyard, a transport shuttle was beginning to touch down. Wind whipped across the courtyard and Edelgard tucked her hands into her pockets to pin down the flapping parts of her blazer. The shuttle touched down and Hubert pulled out his comm unit, checking something. 

“Four Marines, two sailors, and the Gautier boy,” he informed them both. 

Edelgard nodded. “As expected then. They’ve expected something, at least. You have the comms handled?”

“Yes,” Hubert agreed. 

Edelgard straightened as the doors on the transport shuttle opened. She watched as three UEN Marines disembarked the shuttle, wearing their pressed, formal uniforms, but even from fifty feet away she could see that all of them were armed. Behind them, two UEN officers exited the shuttle, likely the pilot and copilot of the craft they had come to Mars on that was parked outside of Victoria’s dome. Finally, a blonde woman wearing the colours of a Marine and a young redheaded man wearing grey pants and a dark teal dress shirt. 

Edelgard stepped forward, beginning to walk across the neutral courtyard to meet her guests halfway. Hubert and Ferdinand followed her, half a step behind, and the Earthen procession marched towards them. Edelgard stopped about halfway across the courtyard and waited for everyone else to take their positions. 

Sylvain Gautier took point for the Earthens, the blonde Marine directly to his left. The Navy officers fell to the back and the other three Marines filled out their ranks behind the diplomat and the blonde who Edelgard could now see bore the decorations of a gunnery sergeant: she was obviously the head of the team of Marines. 

“Welcome to Mars, Earthens,” Edelgard greeted coolly. 

Sylvain just smiled lazily at her, tipping his head up a bit. “It’s a pleasure to be here, Your Majesty.”

Edelgard’s eyes drifted briefly to the blonde Marine. She was looking around, staring up at the security towers in the area on both sides of the courtyard: the Martian and UEK sides. Her green eyes narrowed just the tiniest bit and that was all Edelgard needed to see to know that the little charade was up. 

She drew her gun from the back of her waistband and pointed it straight at the diplomat. The Marine got her gun up just a second later, pointed straight at Edelgard. What followed was a flurry of movements as all the Earthen Marines and officers drew their weapons, only to be matched by Ferdinand and the Martian guards on the towers training gun sights at all of them. 

“Where are the Earthens at the embassy?” the blonde Marine asked, her gun arm not wavering despite the probably dozens of weapons trained on her. 

Edelgard smiled. “So you’re not completely unobservant.”

“Where are they?” the Marine pressed, her tone flat and unimpressed. 

“Those who wouldn’t go quietly were removed from their posts,” she replied coolly. 

The Marine flicked the safety off on her gun: her first emotional trigger of the whole exchange. Edelgard looked away from the Marine to Sylvain, who, to his credit, did not seem particularly fazed by all of the guns he was surrounded by. He had one hand in his pocket casually and he was assessing Edelgard. 

“What’s this about?” he asked. “You invited my father to Mars and now you’re greeting us by having emptied our embassy and pointing a bunch of guns at us.” He seemed remarkably relaxed and Edelgard was almost suspicious. 

“Put down your guns,” Ferdinand said firmly. “There is no winning for you here if we go to blows.”  
  
The blonde Marine didn’t lower her gun, keeping it trained on Edelgard. “I see a pretty clear victory for myself,” she growled. 

“Ingrid,” Sylvain cut in. He reached out and touched her gun arm, gently guiding it down. “If you shoot, this has to end in violence. If you don’t, there might be another way.”

To Edelgard’s surprise, the Marine allowed Sylvain to guide her gun downward. She locked her safety in place and put the weapon down at her feet. Slowly, her other Marines and the Navy officers did the same until they were all disarmed. She didn’t lower her own gun. 

“Thank you,” she said politely. “You’ve saved me a hassle.”

With that, she dropped her gun down and fired a shot straight at the blonde Marine. The gun kicked in Edelgard’s grip and the bullet sank into the abdomen of the Marine who immediately gasped and buckled. At that moment, the Earthen Marines tried to drive for their weapons, but more gunshots rang out, sending them fully to the ground where they stopped moving completely. 

The only Earthen that didn’t receive a lead present was Sylvain himself. He had dropped to his knees and was holding the blonde Marine, desperately trying to help her put pressure on her wound. The woman was the only one of the six soldiers who had not been killed by the initial shot, but there was no doubt that she would bleed out if not given medical attention. 

Edelgard pointed her gun at Sylvain’s head where he knelt on the ground. “Get up,” she ordered. 

Sylvain hesitated, still holding onto the woman. “Please, let me help her.”

“Get up,” she repeated blankly.  
  
Sylvain reached a hand into his pocket and pulled out his comm. He held his finger over the screen and Edelgard narrowed her eyes. His hands were stained red and almost trembling, but his expression was one of concentrated wrath. 

“If you don’t let me help her, you’ll have 14 minutes until the UEK blasts all three of Mars’s domes to dust,” Sylvain threatened. 

Edelgard kept her gun pointed at him and looked at Hubert. “You blocked their comms,” she said to him. “You told me you blocked their comms.”

Hubert scowled. “He does not have a personal comm registered. We swept them when they boarded the transport. It’s a bluff.”

Sylvain tilted his chin up, his amber eyes blazing. “Do you want to make that bet? This comm is what we call a silent ringer. Our diplomats have been carrying them for a couple of years now in the event something like this happened. Go ahead, shoot me here and then in 14 minutes you’ll all be dead. Or,” he paused, looking down at his other hand which was still pressed over the Marine’s gunshot wound, “let me save her. Take us both into custody or whatever you were planning.”

“You’re the diplomat. You’re the valuable one. Why are you bargaining with your life for hers?” Edelgard asked. 

Sylvain’s face hardened, but he didn’t answer her question. “My father holds a permanent seat on the council. That’s why I’m valuable. This is Ingrid Galatea. Her father is General Valen Galatea. He currently holds an Interim seat on the Council. That gives her value too.”

Edelgard hesitated. Sylvain was still holding what he claimed was some kind of silent comm. She had only planned on taking him into custody, but it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to add the Marine as well. Plus, it seemed like the pair had some kind of connection so she would, if necessary, be able to use them to manipulate each other. 

Edelgard lowered her gun. 

“Ferdinand,” she instructed, “call a medic to the Ambassador’s _chambers_ and have a med dock brought there for the woman.” She turned back to Sylvain. “Give me the comm. Prove to me that I’m making the right call.”

He handed it over immediately. Edelgard dropped it and crushed the spike of her stiletto into it, permanently breaking it. She nodded and waved a hand towards the towers, calling off the aggression of the guards. 

“Pick her up and come with us,” Edelgard instructed Sylvain. She glanced at Hubert and then back at the bodies of the Earthen soldiers now littering the courtyard. “Can you clean this up?”

“Yes,” Hubert agreed. 

“Good. I want my transmission sent out as soon as this is done.” She made eye contact with Sylvain who was now cradling the still-bleeding Marine in his arms. He still looked furious, but Edelgard let herself smile. “By the end of the day, Earth and Mars will officially be at war.”

* * *

**NEW YORK CITY, EARTH**

Felix dreamt of Glenn. He dreamt of his brother’s final farewell before he boarded the shuttle for the soon-to-be-known-as the Eros Massacre. Glenn had been so clean in his pressed Marine uniform. His hair had been pulled back out of his face and there wasn’t a strand out of place: a far cry from his usual look. 

Ingrid had held Glenn’s hand as they shared a brief kiss. Glenn had hugged their father, both of their arms clutching at military uniforms. Glenn had hugged Felix too and he could still remember the feeling of his brother’s hand, warm on the back of his neck, as he was held close. Felix had let go first, something he often found himself regretting these nights. 

Then Glenn had boarded the UEN Duscur alongside King Lambert, Queen Patricia, and Prince Dimitri. There were a dozen Marines on board the craft as well, and half a dozen UEN officers. There should have been no way for the mission to go as wrong as it did. 

In the end, Felix remembered his father interrupting one of his, Sylvain’s, and Ingrid’s few nights off with grave news. Due to internal sabotage on the ship, the UEN Duscur had been completely destroyed on Eros, killing nearly everyone involved in the accords except, miraculously, the Prince. 

Felix woke up with Glenn’s name on his lips. He sat up so quickly he displaced some of the probes from the med dock. His entire body screamed in protest as he moved and his vision swam violently. He nearly collapsed back against the cot, but someone caught him and lowered him down gently. 

When his vision cleared, Felix recognized his father as the one who had caught him. He bit back a sharp retort when he saw the look of genuine fear on his father’s expression. Felix rested against the cot and studied his father. The admiral looked afraid, exhausted, and in worse shape than Felix had seen him in since Glenn had died. 

“Who died?” Felix asked. His voice was rough in his throat with what felt like disuse. He almost coughed, but he managed to smother the urge. 

Rodrigue put his elbows on the edge of the cot and put his head in his hands. He chuckled half-heartedly. “You did,” his father admitted after a moment. 

Felix scowled. “Be serious, old man.”

“Felix,” his father’s voice was flat. He looked up at him and Felix saw the pain in his father’s blue eyes. “What do you remember?”

Felix stared at him. “I’m sitting here having this conversation with you. I’m not dead. What’s going on?”

The pain on Rodrigue’s face didn’t lessen. “What do you remember?” he asked again. “I do not think the others will be so nice when they come asking questions, my son.”

Felix wracked his brain for the last thing he remembered. “I was on the Fhirdiad. I was with Dimitri and Dedue, my team, and there was this young pilot, Ashe, I think, plus the more experienced sailor–” Felix cut himself off halfway through the sentence as his mind started to successfully reconstruct his memories. 

Rodrigue kept his face as blank as possible, but Felix could still read the pain on it. He could see the guilt and the sadness in the subtle crease of his forehead and the anger in the twitch of his eyebrow. The tells were all the same as Glenn’s had been, and they were the same as many of Felix’s own. 

“Where’s Dimitri?” Felix demanded. 

“Dead,” his father answered bluntly. “Someone blew up the Fhirdiad.”

“How did I survive?”

“You were wearing your power armour. You must have got knocked far enough away from the explosion that it didn’t vaporize you and your armour protected you from the rest.”

Felix touched one of the healing scars on his left arm and frowned. “How long was I out there?”

Rodrigue closed his eyes, looking weary. “Over a week. Your suit enabled life support to keep you alive. That’s why it took you so long to come back from it.”

Felix’s head was swimming. Life support only ever engaged in their suits when the pilot was absolutely on the verge of death. His hands trembled. The thought of coming that close to death was jarring. 

“What else happened to me?”

“High radiation poisoning, but thankfully your suit managed to filter that and the med dock has undone the rest of the damage. A few bruises and a broken arm from blunt trauma,” his father explained. “And there’s something else too.”

Before he could explain what the something else was, Rodrigue’s comm chimed loudly. He looked momentarily annoyed, but he pulled it from his pocket and pulled up the alert. Felix tried to squint through the clear screen to make sense of the memo his father had received, but his vision was still blurry. He was, however, with it enough to see the absolute terror that crossed his father’s expression. 

“What happened?” he demanded. 

Rodrigue took a deep, centring breath. “Andre Gautier was scheduled to go to Mars this week. He, for some reason, made the decision to pass that duty onto his son.”

Felix stiffened. “Sylvain went to Mars?”

“They would have arrived an hour ago, by my calculation. It would take some time to get from their craft to Victoria and to our embassy, but it would be around this time.” Rodrigue looked ill as he explained. 

Felix’s hands curled into the thin blanket on his cot. “What happened?” he asked again, his voice hardening. 

“His comm was taken offline. And not just offline, the connection shows irreparable physical damage.”

Felix cursed. “Someone broke it.”

Rodrigue stood up. “I have to get to the council room. I’ll be back after that.”

“Fuck that!” Felix cried. He shoved back the blankets. “I’m coming with you.”

He swung his legs off the edge of the bed and tried to stand up. Instantly, his legs buckled out from underneath him. Felix collapsed into a heap next to the cot and only his trained reflexes saved him from cracking his head on the med dock console as he went down. 

“Felix!” his father cried, rushing around the bed. 

Rodrigue heaved Felix back up so that he was sitting on the edge of the bed. Felix was too busy staring at his toes. Toes which he could barely feel, much less control. He looked up at his father, too horrified to school his expression. 

“What is wrong with my legs?” he asked quietly. 

His father sighed and rested a hand on his shoulder. “Blunt trauma to your spine.” He pointed at the pressure band. “Take some more time to heal. The doctors promised you’ll recover and be well enough for service again.”

Felix was about to argue when there was a knock at the door. Both Fraldarius men turned and their attention fixed on a small, redheaded woman in the entrance to the med chamber. She looked immediately alarmed upon seeing that Felix was sitting up. 

“Oh, I didn’t mean to interrupt,” she began, her voice small. 

Rodrigue shook his head. “No, that’s alright. It’s Miss Dominic, right? Cornelia’s new assistant?”

The woman nodded. “Yes. I’m terribly sorry to interrupt,” she repeated. “But, Admiral, Cornelia asked me to fetch you. There’s serious news regarding the mission that was dispatched to Mars.”  
  
Rodrigue’s expression darkened. “Yes, I think I understand. I’m on my way.” He looked at Felix one last time. “I’ll be back after.”

With that, he swept out of the room, brushing past the redheaded woman. She paused, glancing between Felix and where his father had disappeared. Just when it looked like she was going to leave as well, Felix called out to her.  
  
“Wait!” She paused and looked at him. He frowned. “What’s happening? Sylvain’s comm was destroyed?”

She stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. “His comm was physically destroyed and shortly after we received a transmission from the Emperor.”

Felix felt his jaw drop before he could stop it. The woman inhaled shakily. 

“Mars has declared war on Earth.”


	6. Six - Limits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pieces start to fall into place in the Outer Colonies and on Mars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a few days since I updated last, so might as well.

Six - Limits

* * *

**CENTRAL PALLAS, OUTER COLONIES**

Ashe’s head hurt. It felt similar to the time that he had taken a boot to the head in training and bashed it on a ladder during an obstacle course. When he woke up, he kept his eyes closed and tried to take a few deep breaths to push away the throbbing in his head. Even with his eyes closed he could hear beeping around him. 

He swallowed roughly, wincing at the burn in his throat, and blinked his eyes open. The bright lights stung his eyes, but Ashe squinted through the pain, trying to get a clear picture of his surroundings. He lifted his right hand and rubbed weakly at his face, but quickly noticed that his left arm was in a pressure band for a med dock. 

The light eventually settled from overpowering to just bright and he was able to look around. He was in a semi-crowded med bay that looked unfamiliar to him. He shifted on his cot, propping himself up on one arm as he looked around. His head pounded unhelpfully as he scanned the room, looking for details. 

A couple of cots over, there was a young woman attending to a man. She was wearing medical scrubs and Ashe recognized the UEK medic insignia on her shirt. He exhaled slowly. He was in a UEK-controlled area at least. That was a good sign. The woman glanced up and caught Ashe looking at her. Her lips parted in surprise and he watched her quickly say a farewell to the patient she was dealing with. 

Ashe lowered himself back down against the cot as the medic rushed over to him. She sat on the stool next to his bed and pulled his med bay console towards herself. She smiled at him and Ashe almost immediately felt at ease. She had a very reassuring smile and it was incredibly non-threatening. As strange as it was, she had the perfect face for a medic. 

“How are you feeling?” she asked him. Her voice was soft too and Ashe stared at her for a minute. 

“My head hurts,” he admitted. He glanced around the med bay again. “Where am I?”

She tapped something on the console and the pressure band on his arm tightened briefly before it relaxed, releasing his arm. Ashe withdrew his arm, rotating his wrist to work out any stiffness. The medic just watched him for a minute, looking a bit uncertain about the whole situation. 

“You’re on Pallas,” she said eventually. 

Ashe blinked. Pallas was one of the UEK colonies in the asteroid belt. It was smaller than Ganymede and Ceres, but a bit more developed than Vesta. Vesta held more political sway than Pallas tended to since its governor leaned more away from Earth while Pallas was a staunch Earth-supporter. Ashe wracked his brain for the system navigation map of the path the Fhirdiad had been on. Pallas would have been the closest major station when–

He abruptly sat up, cold fear gripping his chest. “What happened to the Fhirdiad?”

The medic raised her eyebrows. “Please, be careful. Your head is still healing. Your name is Ashe, right? That’s what your friend said.”  
  
Ashe furrowed his brow. “Friend?”

“You two were picked up in the same drop pod just at the edge of Pallas’s Area of Operations.”

Ashe exhaled shakily. “Okay.” Her explanation checked out with the memories that were piecing themselves back together.   
  
“You asked me about the Fhirdiad,” she continued. “May I ask you something? Did you two come from the Fhirdiad?”

Ashe bit the inside of his cheeks. She was a UEK medic, but for some reason, his instinct was to lie to her. He looked down at the foot of his cot and noticed that his uniform was folded neatly atop the sheets. He closed his eyes and sighed. 

“Yes,” he admitted finally. 

When he looked back at the medic, she looked surprised. “I’m beginning to understand your friend’s urgent desire to get back to Earth then.” She turned her attention to his med dock console and tapped a few more keys. “It looks like you’re almost all healed. My advice would be to avoid any more head injuries in the near future though.”

She got up like she was about to leave and Ashe grabbed her hand. “Wait! Can you tell me what happened?”

She smiled sadly and sat back down. “Someone attacked the Fhirdiad just over a week and a half ago. Apparently the entire crew was supposed to have died in the explosion. Except for a Marine that the UEN salvage team recovered who was free-floating, and, well, you two.”

Ashe drummed his fingers nervously over the blanket. “There were no other pods recovered from the ship?”

The medic’s brow furrowed. “No.” She glanced at the clock on the wall in the med bay. “Ashe, if you give me a few minutes to finish my rounds my shift will be over. I can take you to see your friend then if you’d like?”

Ashe nodded. “That would be good, thank you.”

The medic reached down below the cot and pulled out a clean UEN uniform. It didn’t have any rank or personal indication on it, but it was likely in much better shape than his old uniform. “There’s a privacy partition over there if you’d like to change.” Ashe took the uniform from her. She stood up to leave again but paused. “Oh! My name is Mercedes. I probably should have started with that.”

Mercedes brushed her hair out of her face and walked away from Ashe. As she did, Ashe caught a glimpse of a dark mark on her neck. It was a circle with two smaller dots around it and he recognized it: a popular tattoo for people who were born on Mars. He stared after her dumbly for a moment. She was a UEK medic, but she had a Martian tattoo?

Ashe shook his head and gathered the clean uniform she had given him into his arms. He stood up from the cot, making sure to take it slow so that he didn’t immediately fall over. He glanced at his own uniform and a thought struck him. He reached into the pocket on his jacket and drew out his comm. From the look of it, it appeared to be broken, but he traced a quick pattern on its screen and it came to life quickly. 

The zombie comm was a processing bug he had developed by accident, but it had its uses. He wasn’t sure if he would have still had his comm when he woke if it had been normally functional. It may have been confiscated by the Pallas authorities, but since it appeared to have been broken, he still had it. 

Ashe rested against the bed as he pulled up his log. He didn’t have any personal comms so he pulled up Pallas’s newsfeed. There were a couple of articles about the UEN Fhirdiad and he skimmed one. When he saw his own name listed under the deceased officers, his stomach twisted. His siblings had every reason to think he was dead now. He knew if he tried to send them a comm it would either be flagged by the UEK or they would assume it was some kind of sick joke. 

Instead, he went back to the newsfeed and looked at the top two trending articles. The first one was a report from Ceres declaring that the station was now under the control of the Alliance of Outer Colonies. That was surprising. Ceres had always had a lot of sway in the Outer Colonies, but to be completely free of Earth’s influence? That was big news. 

The other major story almost made Ashe drop his comm. Yesterday, an Earthen diplomat had landed on Mars to conduct a routine diplomatic mission. In response, Mars had assassinated his entire UEN and UEMC cohort and had imprisoned the ambassador. What had followed was a declaration of war against Earth. Ashe rubbed his face and tried to push down the fear building in his stomach. 

He moved to place the comm back down on the cot so that he could go change when the screen lit up. Ashe froze, staring at it. Effectively, he was dead. No one should be sending him a comm. It took him another few seconds before he grabbed the comm and pulled up the message he had received. 

It was a text comm from _Hygiea_. Ashe’s jaw dropped. 

[ _Thank you for Ceres_ ,] it said simply. 

So it had worked. His ploy in forwarding that message to Ceres had worked. Someone on Ceres had received the cry for help and they must have been supplying aid to Hygiea. 

He replied before he could think twice about it. [Are you okay?]

There was a brief delay before he was pinged by a response. [ _We have supplies now. The Martians are still here, but we have supplies._ ]

Ashe was considering a reply when it chimed again. 

[ _Who am I thanking?_ ]

He didn’t particularly want to admit that he was from Earth, so he went with a safer reply. [A pilot.]

[ _I_ _don’t suppose you would be willing to help me again, Pilot, would you?_ ]

[That depends. How can I help?]

[ _I want to go to Ceres. Someone is starting a revolution there and I am wishing to be part of it. Could you be flying me there?_ ] 

Ashe hesitated on his reply. His first priority should have been getting word to Earth that he survived the Fhirdiad’s explosion. But, Earth was at war with Mars and probably had much bigger things to worry about than one UEN pilot on Pallas. This strange woman on Hygiea was asking for his help and if that was how he could make a difference then he wanted to try. 

[I want to try,] he replied. 

* * *

**VICTORIA, MARS**

Ingrid had used to be able to count on one hand the number of times she had been shot. 

The first time was when she was a green Marine on a mission on Ganymede dealing with a group of water thieves who were trying to start a black market. She’d moved a bit too slow on the draw and had taken a bullet to the thigh. The second time was a misfire in a training demo. The bullet had nearly shattered her shin and had put her out of commission for almost three months. 

The third time had been a hostage situation on Ceres with a group of gangsters. She had removed her power armour in an attempt to de-escalate the situation but had gotten shot in the shoulder for her trouble. The fourth time had been when a radical had stormed headquarters, shooting up the lobby. Ingrid had taken the bullet in her arm to protect her CO and gotten a promotion for her efforts. The fifth time was in a shootout on Vesta with a gang that had led to her getting shot in the thigh, again. 

Now she’d been shot for the 6th time. In the stomach. By the Emperor of Mars.

Ingrid had only been half-conscious when Sylvain had negotiated for their lives and carried her inside of a massive Martian military complex. She had dug her fingernails into the skin around her wound to stay awake, but as soon as they were led into a room and Ingrid was immediately hooked up to a med dock and given anesthetics which knocked her out despite her best efforts. When she came to, she was lying in the chair for the dock and Sylvain was seated on the bed in the room, his face in his hands. 

Ingrid glanced around the room. They were otherwise alone and she didn’t see any cameras immediately visible. She shifted in the chair and pain flared through her abdomen. She winced and bit back a gasp. She curled her hands into fists and let her fingernails dig into her palms to try and distract her from the pain in her stomach. Sylvain didn’t seem to have noticed that she had come to. 

She flexed her left arm against the pressure band on her arm, but it was holding her tight. By the pain in her stomach, she had probably only been in the bay for a day at most, but it was long enough to make her antsy. She knew how to operate while wounded and sitting in a med dock as a prisoner on the wrong planet was not how she imagined this would be going. 

Finally, Sylvain lifted his face from his hands and looked at her. They made eye contact and he just stared dumbly at her for a moment. Then his brain seemed to catch up and he shot to his feet. 

“Ingrid!”

She shifted in the seat and winced at the pain in her stomach. “Hi,” she muttered. 

He walked over to her and perched on the edge of the chair. His expression was grave and he rested his hand on her thigh. “How are you?”

“Alive,” she grumbled. “What happened?”

His expression flickered to anger. “Her Majesty saw fit to greet us with lead instead of silverware.”

Ingrid pressed her lips together. “I was together enough for that part. What else happened?”

Sylvain closed his eyes and his face scrunched up. “They killed everyone in the Embassy, Ing. They killed our whole team and locked us in here and it’s been a full day.”  
  
She grabbed his wrist. “Your silent ringer! Do you still have it?”

His expression twisted. “No.”  
  
Ingrid stared. “That’s your lifeline as an ambassador! How can you not have it? It doesn’t show up on scans.”

“Because I traded it for your life, okay?” Sylvain snapped. Ingrid stared. 

She could vaguely remember Sylvain leaning over her and arguing with the Emperor before he had lifted her up, but her ears had already been ringing from going partially into shock. Belatedly, she realized that it made sense. Of course they hadn’t intended to keep her alive. She was just a Gunnery Sergeant Marine. She was probably more work to keep alive than she was worth. 

She slid her hand from his wrist to his hand and touched his clenched knuckles. She swallowed. “Thank you,” she said quietly. 

Sylvain’s guard visibly lowered. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Sore,” she admitted. “But, I got shot. Could have been worse.”

Sylvain’s face flickered with relief and then something darker. Ingrid looked away from him, studying the pressure band on her arm. “Can you slide the console here?” she requested. 

Sylvain rolled the med dock’s console in front of him and skimmed through her reports. “Another day and you’ll be okay,” he reported. 

“I could have read that myself,” she pointed out. He didn’t look at her, keeping his eyes fixed on the console. “Sylvain,” she said, her voice hardening. “What is it?”

“It’s my fault you’re here,” he muttered. 

She sighed. “Yes because without you I would have bled out in that courtyard. This isn’t your fault.”

“On Mars, Ingrid.” He looked at her. “Look me in the eye and tell me you would have accepted this mission if it had been anyone but me.”

She tried to say it. The words stuck in her throat when she remembered the furious state she’d been in the morning Rodrigue found her. The fact that she had thought Felix was dead and that Sylvain was just going to go off to Mars had flipped a switch in her that had made it a snap decision to accept the mission. If it had been his father, not him, Ingrid wouldn’t have gone. It was that simple.   
  
Sylvain read her response in her face and nodded. “I thought so. I should have told you sooner.”

She frowned. “Told me what?”

“I’ve been watching my father’s finances. He’s been spending less and less time at home and more and more money on research projects.” Sylvain stood up and began to pace across the room. “Of course, I didn’t want to just come out and ask him about it, so I didn’t. I figured that maybe if I took this opportunity from him he’d trust me enough to tell me what he was funding.”  
  
“A research project? I never really saw your father as the type for that.”

“Me neither. That’s why it was weird to me. I looked into one of the projects and I bet you can guess who another major backer of it was.”

Ingrid thought for a moment. Andre Gautier was an influential member of the UEK Security Council. Before the Eros Massacre, he had been close with both Rodrigue Fraldarius and her father, Valen Galatea. After the Massacre, he had withdrawn from his friendships, focusing more on his own affairs and position on the council. 

“Cornelia,” she guessed. “He’s funding a project that Cornelia’s backing.”

Sylvain nodded, still pacing the room back and forth. Ingrid was starting to feel antsy, trapped in the med dock like she was. He ran a hand through his hair. “But then he voted no on Dimitri’s proposal for the rendezvous mission even though Cornelia voted yes, so I had to reconsider.” He shook his head. “The way that he spoke to me that day, he was so angry with the council for letting Dimitri go up there.” 

Ingrid filled in a few blanks, thinking back to their brief conversation before they left Earth. “You really think he knew? You think that he knew someone would blow up the Fhirdiad?”

Sylvain looked at her helplessly. “I don’t want to think that, but I don’t know what else to say. He didn’t want Dimitri to go on that mission. He didn’t want to come on this mission and look where it has gotten us.”

Ingrid felt like her head was spinning. She had never been good at the politics part of wars. She held guns and kicked ass and asked questions later. She was a Marine, not a diplomat. She wasn’t good at reading people. 

“Sylvain, slow down,” she ordered. “Are you saying that your father knew what was going to happen on this mission? That he knew what Mars’s reaction would be?”

“I don’t want to,” he repeated. “But I have this horrible feeling that he might have.”

Ingrid didn’t know how to reply. Thankfully, she didn’t end up having to. The door on the far side of the hall swung open and both she and Sylvain went rigid. On the other side of the door was a young woman wearing a simple, low ranking Martian Navy uniform. She had long, curly brown hair under a navy cap and she was holding a tray full of food. 

“I don’t mean to interrupt,” she said. She had bright green eyes that twinkled merrily. Ingrid was immediately wary of her. 

Sylvain shifted so that he was standing between Ingrid and the MN officer. “Can we help you?”

She offered the tray. “We’re not complete monsters, you know. We’d never starve you.”

“You shot and killed five of our countrymen,” Ingrid pointed out dryly. 

The woman pressed her lips together and stepped into the room. She placed the tray down on the dresser close to the door. “There’s a comm unit by the door if you need anything.”

* * *

**IO, OUTER COLONIES**

Lysithea rolled the clear pill across her palm and frowned at it. Her mother sat across from her at the table and watched her with an uncertain and uneasy look. The pill felt like plastic, but that was just the coating on the outside. Still, she could already guess what this one would taste like and she didn’t really want to know how it was going to make her feel. 

“Lysithea,” her mother urged when it looked like she wasn’t going to take it. 

Lysithea scowled but placed the pill on her tongue. She took a sip of water and swallowed it. Almost immediately, she felt nauseous. She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table and putting her face in her hands. She took a deep breath, but her nausea didn’t lessen. There was the screech of a chair on the ground and the click of heels against metal floors before hands began soothingly rubbing circles onto her back. 

Unconsciously Lysithea leaned into her mother’s touch as a headache started to bloom behind her eyes. She exhaled shakily and blindly reached for her glass of water. She missed and the back of her hand bumped the glass. Water splashed as the glass tumbled to the ground, shattering with a loud crash. 

Her mother startled behind her, but Lysithea just groaned, rubbing at her temples as the headache throbbed violently. Her throat burned like she had swallowed acid and her vision blurred. She continued taking deep breaths and trying to focus on the hand between her shoulder blades and the table beneath her elbow. 

Finally, after what felt like hours, the headache began to fade to a mild ache and her nausea passed. She dropped her hands to the table and her mother paused in rubbing her back. 

“Darling?”

“I’m done for now,” she mumbled. “I’m going to go back to work.”

She stood up from the table, pushing her chair out and almost hitting her mother. She stepped over the puddle of water and broken glass and tried to walk in a straight line out of the dining room. Her mother didn’t follow her, but she could feel her eyes bearing into her back as she walked away. 

As soon as she was sure she was out of her mother’s line of sight, Lysithea grabbed the wall for balance. She still felt groggy and weak, but at least her physical pain had been lessened. Still, everything was temporary and she had work to do. She managed to walk to her room without stumbling too badly thanks to the steadying hand she kept on the wall. 

Inside her room, her computer hummed, the processor hard at work. She sat down at her desk and called up the decryption software she was working on. It was a Martian Navy channel that she had isolated a few days back. The encryption on it was stronger than it normally was which made her think that she might have found a private military channel. That thought alone was enough to make her want to crack it even more desperately than usual. 

“Computer, show me the Ceres shout channel,” she instructed. 

She waved a hand up to engage her holo display and watched as the records of the access to the requested channel appeared. She flicked away any of Claude’s uses of it: she knew about those. There had been the incoming comm from Earth with the message from Hygiea, but then there was also the one that had attempted to access the channel from somewhere in the asteroid belt near Pallas. That person had attempted to run decryption software to find the recipient of the comm. 

Lysithea had noticed the program running and had manually locked that person out of the channel. She had tried to do a reverse search to pinpoint a location using the transmitted coordinates that had been running the software, but the only thing she had succeeded in doing was tracking the signal to Ganymede, Ceres, and Vesta simultaneously. 

It was frustrating. Whoever had tried to hack the channel had the best spoofer Lysithea had ever seen. Usually, within a few hours, she was able to break those types of transmitters down and get a pin on a real location, but this one was frustratingly evasive, almost like it was alive enough to avoid detection on its own. 

Someone knocked on the door behind her and Lysithea ignored it. She wasn’t in the mood to talk to her mother or father right now. She just wanted to work. She had a group of transmissions to encrypt before they could safely be sent to Vesta and Ganymede. Even though they’d managed to succeed in taking Ceres, the struggle was far from over yet, especially since Earth and Mars were now officially at war. 

Hands closed over her eyes and cut off her vision suddenly. Lysithea floundered, practically clawing at the hands. Her nails dug into skin and a male voice cursed and the hands withdrew quickly. She spun in her chair and glared at Claude who stood behind her, shaking out his hands. Hilda was next to him, looking amused. 

“Hello, dear,” Hilda greeted, smiling. 

Lysithea frowned. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you not be leaving Ceres?”

Claude shrugged. “Judith has it under control. I trust her. We came to ask a favour of you.”

She scowled. “I already agreed to join your inner circle nonsense. I’ve been working on those messages you gave me. What else do you want?” Hilda held out her comm. Lysithea took it and looked at the log on the screen. She furrowed her brow. “Selene? What is there on Selene besides a bunch of research stations that you’re interested in?”

She tapped Hilda’s comm against the reader on her desk and transferred the record onto her own display. She tapped a few keys on her keyboard and began running her trace software. She looked back at Claude and Hilda who were both just watching her curiously. Lysithea crossed her arms. 

“I’ll get what I can from this,” she conceded. “But, why am I doing this?”

“Because a good friend of Hilda’s pinned that one as a transmission from Selene to Mars,” Claude explained. 

Hilda glared at him, but Lysithea just blinked. Selene was Earth’s moon. Why would someone on Selene be sending highly encrypted messages to Mars? Especially in the middle of a war between the two planets. Contact in and out of Selene should have been limited to only UEK transmission lines. 

“And because we wanted to check on your progress with the Hygiea comm,” Hilda continued, still glaring at Claude. 

Lysithea turned back to her display and pulled up what she had been working on. “This,” she pointed out a glowing dot near Pallas, “is where someone tried to access this line. I locked them out, but I haven’t been able to get a lock on their position in return.”

Claude shook his head. “That’s probably a lost cause. Focus on what you can do. Do you know who sent us the initial distress signal yet?”

Lysithea nodded. “Actually I do. I was having trouble with it because there was a manual block on the system on their end, but I got through earlier.” She typed in a new command and brought up the UEN record of the sailor she had traced the comm to. “Ashe Ubert. UEN Ensign and pilot in training.”

Hilda frowned. “What’s a UEN Ensign doing tapping a pirate frequency out of a Martian colony?”

Lysithea shrugged. “I don’t know, but I do think you’ll find his service record interesting.” She swiped on the display to bring up his record. 

Claude hissed out a breath through his teeth. “What the hell?”

Hilda crossed her arms. “His last deployment was the UEN Fhirdiad. Isn’t that the ship that the Martians blew up that had the UEK Prince onboard?”

Lysithea nodded. “Yes. You’ll never guess where I pinged Ashe Ubert’s comm recently though.” They both gestured for her to continue. “Pallas.”

Claude looked like he was about to reply when Lysithea’s computer pinged, having finished the program she ran. She turned to it and pulled up the comm she had decrypted. It was mostly corrupted, which made her frown, but she had managed to salvage a few lines of the text.

[ _–he won’t figure it out before you need us again. Gravity sickness is a problem that requires more time than you can afford to give him. If Herving figures it out then–_ ]

Lysithea stared at the comm. Gravity sickness. Someone on Mars was working on a cure, or treatment, for _gravity sickness._ Her hands trembled on her keyboard as she recalled the nausea and pain she suffered on a near-daily basis. 

“Claude.”

His face was firm. “We’ll get it for you. I promise.”

“Whatever you need me to do,” she finished. 


	7. Seven - Waning Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dots connect and more information comes to light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cheers to my work setup being broken. Again. I got this done faster because of it, so blessings and curses surely go together.

Seven - Waning Moon

* * *

**NEW YORK CITY, EARTH**

Annette was humming to herself as she walked down the hallway. She was carrying her datapad that had the files Cornelia had asked her to fetch from records. Apparently, they contained the official schematics of many of the top-line Martian fleet ships. It was important to know what they were up against now that war was official. 

She reached Cornelia’s office and was about to knock when she heard low, urgent tones from inside. She hesitated, her knuckles pausing an inch away from the wooden door. Whoever Cornelia was speaking to, she didn’t sound impressed. 

“The Sergeant seems _convinced_ that they picked up missiles on the Fhirdiad’s radar before the explosion. Apparently it was in enough time for a Marine to fully don his power armour and for two pods to be launched!”

Annette slapped a hand over her mouth to smother the gasp she almost released. She was officially eavesdropping now and there was something different about the way that Cornelia was talking. The way she spoke, it sounded like she was irritated at the fact that pods could have launched from the Fhirdiad. Annette bit her lip and considered her options: she could stay and try to listen in further, or she could knock and deliver the plans like she was supposed to do in the first place. 

“Get me a better sweep of that debris field,” Cornelia snapped. “There are no maybes in this situation. The Prince is either dead or he’s not. It should be simple.”

Annette raised her hand to knock on the door, but she didn’t quite get the opportunity to. Someone tapped her on the shoulder and she jumped, spinning around to face whoever had snuck up on her. 

It was the Admiral who was the father of the Marine recovered from the Fhirdiad’s wreckage. “Hello,” he greeted politely. He had a kind smile, but his eyes looked exhausted. Annette pitied him. It couldn’t be easy to manage an entire army while the nation was at war. 

“Hello, Admiral,” she squeaked in reply. 

He glanced at the datapad she was holding. “Is that for Cornelia?”

“Yes,” she agreed, clutching it tightly. “Some Martian records she asked me to fetch.”

“Of course,” he agreed. He held a hand out. “I can deliver these for you if you’d like to not have to explain why you were eavesdropping on your boss.”

Annette flushed bright red and handed the datapad over. She hastily stepped back and retreated down the hallway to her own designated office. She didn’t dare to look back at the Admiral, horrified that he’d caught her listening in on whatever comm or transmission Cornelia had been sending. 

Annette froze. She was Cornelia’s assistant so she had basic access to Cornelia’s logs. She pulled her own comm out of her pocket and pulled up her boss’s comm logs. Today’s records were rather bare: a comm to Andre Gautier titled ‘Mars’, a comm to Annette that was the report request, and a comm to Admiral Fraldarius titled ‘Fleet plans’. There was no record of any transmission with a timestamp current enough to have been the one that she had just sent. 

Annette’s stomach sunk. It wasn’t on record because it was a private or unlisted comm, meaning she shouldn’t have been discussing UEK business matters like the Fhirdiad. She quickly exited out of the log and shoved her comm back into her pocket. She had just overheard her boss sending a private comm that was definitely a breach of public security. Her boss, unfortunately, was the head of public security. She had no idea who she could talk to about what she had just overheard. 

There were the other Security Council members, of course, but then she would have to suss out which of them would believe a newly employed assistant over their reigning Secretary-General. Plus, she had no idea if any of the other Council members were in on whatever was going on. 

She walked aimlessly through the halls of the UEK headquarters, desperately trying to consider her options. She had just passed the door to the med bay when she realized that there was a choice she hadn’t thought of. Cornelia had been discussing Sergeant Fraldarius’s testimony regarding the UEN Fhirdiad: the statement he’d given to the Security Council yesterday. Annette hadn’t been allowed to be present for the statement, but maybe he could answer some of her questions. 

She tapped her access card on the scanner by the door and let herself into the med bay. From what she remembered, he was in room A14. It was easy enough to find and the door was already open. She pushed it open a bit further and caught sight of the Sergeant holding onto two parallel bars and relying almost entirely on his upper body for movement as he awkwardly walked the length of the bars towards his bed. 

It was a physical therapy exercise to combat the injuries he had sustained in the aftermath of the Fhirdiad’s explosion. According to his report, he had sustained a back injury that had severely affected his mobility. Annette stood awkwardly in the doorway for a second as he laboriously dragged his body back towards the medical cot. 

Finally, her nerves caught up with her and she knocked on the inside of the doorframe. His head snapped towards her and he narrowed his eyes. 

“If Cornelia wants to interrogate me again, she can come do it herself,” he snarled. 

He turned away from her and maneuvered his way back to the bed. He sat on the edge of it and scowled at her when she didn’t leave. Annette shifted her weight from one leg to the other and took a deep breath. 

“Cornelia didn’t send me here.”

His scowl lessened, but he still looked suspicious. He pulled out the hair tie holding his hair up and began redoing his bun, still frowning. “Then why are you here?”

“I wanted to ask you about the UEN Fhirdiad.”

He rolled his eyes. “I already gave a briefing on what happened. Besides, I don’t think you have clearance for that.”

Annette stiffened, raising her chin. She refused to be bullied by an injured Marine. “I don’t think Mars blew up your ship,” she said bluntly. 

He stared at her. “ _What_?” he demanded. 

“Sergeant Fraldarius,” she began and he waved a hand. 

“Felix.”

“Felix,” she corrected herself. “I don’t think Mars had anything to do with the attack on the Fhirdiad.”

He rested his elbows on his knees and stared at her. “Let me get this straight. You, a glorified secretary, think that Mars, when presented with a perfect opportunity, didn’t blow up the UEK Prince to start a war.”

It sounded silly when he said it, but for some reason, Annette was sure. “If they blew up the Fhirdiad to start the war, why did they take the ambassador hostage before declaring war?”

Felix narrowed his eyes again, but he didn’t argue. “Why? Why do you think it wasn’t Mars?” He paused. “And why are you telling me and not your boss?”

“Because I can’t tell her,” Annette said, wringing her hands in front of her. “I can’t tell her because I think she already knows that.”

Surprise flickered across the Marine’s expression. It was the first real indication that she had caught him off guard and she was almost proud of that fact. She kept her gaze trained on him, waiting for him to challenge her. 

To her surprise, he didn’t. “Why do you think she already knows?”

“I walked past her office this morning and overheard her sending a comm. She sounded angry about the fact that your ship had been able to detect the missiles that had blown it up. She sounded furious that apparently you had managed to launch pods,” Annette explained. 

Felix frowned. “I can’t imagine she was particularly delighted when I was recovered from the blast site either.”

Annette shook her head. “No. She made it sound like your testimony had thrown everything off-kilter.”

Felix studied her and Annette felt like she had just been placed under a microscope. His amber eyes were cool and as he assessed her she had to resist the urge to squirm. She managed to bite her bottom lip and keep still as he stared at her. 

“That’s not the only thing you came here to tell me,” he pointed out. 

“No,” Annette agreed. She stole a glance at the camera in the room. Its light was off, indicating that it wasn’t recording anything at the moment. “The way that Cornelia was saying all of this gives me a weird feeling.”

“What kind of feeling?”

“I think,” she said quietly, “that there is a chance that His Highness might still be alive.”

Felix stared. “The pod would have been vaporized in the blast.”

“What kind of pod was it?” Annette pressed. She really, really wanted to be right about this. 

“Razorback,” Felix said immediately. He paused, processing. “A Razorback would have the necessary propulsion for a short period to get far enough away from the blast radius.”

Annette exhaled shakily. All of her nerves were singing because her hunch may have been correct. Prince Dimitri may still be alive. 

* * *

**SPACESHIP SEIROS, THE ASTEROID BELT**

Byleth wasn’t particularly confident in her social abilities, but listening to the prince of the UEK argue with her ship’s AI was particularly entertaining. Ever since she had introduced Dimitri, as he insisted she call him, to Sothis, she had had a continuous stream of entertainment. 

Dimitri had continued to argue his case to send a transmission to Earth, but Byleth kept her comms on tight lockdown. She really, really didn’t want to attract unnecessary attention to the Seiros. It was enough work to keep her functioning with a one-woman crew, but she really didn’t want to have to manage aggression from either side during unstable political times. 

Today she was working on some of her green panels in the galley when Dimitri found her. He sat at the table and just watched as she gently prodded the dirt around each of her little plants, checking the water levels and the firmness of the dirt. He seemed content to just watch her, so Byleth kept working and didn’t strike up a conversation with him either. 

Once she was satisfied with the panel she was working on, she slid the last plant into place and reattached it to the wall, securing the glass sheet over it as well. She brushed the lingering dirt off her hands and turned back to the prince who was still staring at her curiously. 

“Why are you using green panels?” he asked suddenly. 

She blinked. “The plants I use are particularly good at air cycling and filtration. Using the green panels means that I have to dock less often to refresh the air supply onboard. It saves me quite a bit of hassle in that area.”

Dimitri considered her words. “That makes sense.” He studied the green panel, looking almost wistful. “I’ve never seen green panels on a ship in person before. They’re quite pretty.”  
  
Byleth smiled faintly. “You would like them, Earthen.” She said the words teasingly, and Dimitri’s lips twitched into an almost smile. 

“My friend, Dedue, always wanted to see a green panel. He loved nature.”

“Friend?” Byleth asked. She leaned against the table across from him and tilted her head. “I didn’t know princes were allowed to have friends.”  
  
Dimitri chuckled. “He was my personal guard,” he admitted. “But I always considered him my friend.”

“Your personal guard, huh?”

Dimitri looked away, his eyes darkening. “He was on the Fhirdiad with me, if that was what you were going to ask.”  
  
Byleth bit her lip, feeling guilty. Dimitri moped every time the ship was mentioned and she felt awful. She wished that she could safely get his message out to his people so that they could know he was alright. 

She hadn’t yet found a way to safely bounce a transmission enough times so that it could not be traced back to her and the ship. The lock-out she had experienced on the Ceres channel still made her nervous. According to Sothis, someone had been using that attempt to try to locate the ship. Thankfully, Sothis was good at actively manipulating their location data to throw off those attempts. 

“I wanted to ask you about the ship,” Dimitri said suddenly. “How did you come to crew a ship this size on your own?”

Byleth smiled sadly. “I wasn’t always on my own. It used to be my father’s ship. We had a full crew and everything.”

He leaned forward, looking genuinely curious. “What happened?”

“My father died,” Byleth admitted. “After that, I took command, but I gave the crew the choice to leave or stay. Most of them wanted to leave so I dropped them off where I could and that was it.”

“ _And then it’s just been you and me since!_ ” Sothis chimed in cheerfully over the ship’s PA.

Dimitri startled at the ship’s voice. He still wasn’t used to it and Byleth hid a smile. “Sothis technically wasn’t active when the crew was around, but her programming was hidden in some of the ship’s software. I activated her by accident one day.”

“You’re awfully good at all this stuff,” Dimitri pointed out. “The mechanics, the engineering, the piloting.”

Byleth shrugged. “I’ve spent most of my life on this ship. I know how she works.”

He held up a hand, pointing at her as his brow furrowed. “You said most of your life. What does that mean?”

Byleth bit her tongue, she’d walked right into that one. 

“ _Not to cut in,_ ” Sothis said, cutting into the conversation exactly when Byleth needed her to, “ _but we just crossed into Hygiea’s AO and I picked up a very interesting message on a Martian channel that I think you’ll want to hear._ ”

“I thought you said your comms were dark,” Dimitri said, frowning. 

Byleth waved him off. “The out-going are. That doesn’t mean I can’t pick up a signal going through my space. Sothis, set it up in command. I’m coming up.”

She strode towards the exit of the galley and paused in the doorway. She looked back at Dimitri and he stood up hastily, recognizing the unspoken invitation she was offering him. He followed her as they walked from the galley to the command deck. 

The central hologram was active, showing a Martian newsfeed. Byleth strode over to it and studied the log on the projection. It was a fleet deployment manifesto for a group of Martian ships to the Callisto AO. Byleth frowned and scrolled through it, looking for the command ship. She found it easily enough: the MN Enbarr, one of the Martian Navy’s largest and most powerful fleet command ships. 

Dimitri stood next to her, squinting at the hologram. “Why is Mars deploying a fleet to Callisto? Are there rebellion reports there? We had been having reports of things happening on Ceres, but I wasn’t aware that any of the Martian colonies were suffering to the same degree.”

“Search the feed for Ceres news,” Byleth ordered. 

Sothis scanned through the line and brought up a new projection. It was a rotating clip of a young man standing on a crate in what looked like a station atrium, raising his hand and yelling out to the crowd. Dimitri stiffened. She glanced at him. 

“You know him?”

“Know of him,” Dimitri agreed. “That’s Claude von Riegan. He’s the interim governor of Ceres. What’s he doing?”

“ _Celebrating Ceres’s independence, apparently_ ,” Sothis supplied. “ _Earth lost control of the station. They officially declared their independence and the newsfeed says that Earth doesn’t have the ships to spare to retake it as it stands due to the ongoing war._ ”

“War?” Byleth and Dimitri exclaimed together. They sounded equally horrified and Byleth gripped the edge of the hologram console so that her hands didn’t shake.

“Sothis, search the feed for news on a war.”

The hologram flickered and changed to a Martian newsfeed that detailed the Emperor’s declaration to send the planet to war with Earth, stating a long history of antagonistic relations and the lack of respect that Earth had for Mars. Dimitri staggered away from the table, his face ghostly pale. 

Byleth waved her hand and dismissed the newsfeed. She exhaled shakily and looked at Dimitri. “You told me that someone blew your ship up, that they fired missiles that didn’t appear on your radar until way too late. You escaped in a Razorback drop shuttle, but the rest of the ship’s crew likely died in the resulting explosion. Plus, it happens to be that everyone seems to think you’re dead. If Mars really did fire those missiles, that would be a damn good way to start a war.”  
  
Dimitri ran both hands through his hair, looking immensely stressed out. “I went on the damn ship in the first place so that I could avoid going to war with Mars!”

Byleth stepped closer to him and grabbed his forearms so that he had to focus on her. She needed him not to be spiralling right now. “Dimitri,” she said urgently. “Would Earth retaliate after something like that?”

“Not unless provoked,” he said immediately and then frowned. “But, I suppose I don’t know that. Admiral Fraldarius is the voice of reason on the Security Council, but his son was on the Fhirdiad. If Felix died, then I don’t know how Rodrigue would react.”

“ _According to the reports, it was Mars who declared war first, not Earth,_ ” Sothis added. 

Byleth closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Can you stop this war?” she asked Dimitri, her voice hard and serious. His blue eyes were wide and slightly terrified. He didn’t answer immediately and Byleth squeezed her hands on his arms tightly. “Dimitri,” she pressed. 

“I don’t know,” he said. “If Earth was able to determine that I am unharmed, maybe they would be inclined to initiate peace talks. That would be our best bet. I have a feeling that Mars capitalized on Earth’s anger over the Fhirdiad in declaring war.”

“You’re saying maybe,” Byleth said. She dropped his arms and turned back to face the console. “Sothis, show me the best plot we have for bouncing that transmission. If we have a chance to stop this war and save millions of lives, we have to take it. We can take the risk of being heard.”

* * *

**CENTRAL PALLAS, OUTER COLONIES**

Ashe was very polite as they walked together through the station towards the docks. He was fidgety, Mercedes noted, and his hands kept straying to the pocket on the uniform pants. She didn’t say anything about it, just telling him a bit about Pallas as they walked through the centre of the station. 

His friend, the other Earthen, Dedue, had been spending all his time at the docks trying to charter a ship back to Earth, but, of course, Mercedes knew that it was proving very difficult to charter a ship both because of the active warzone and the fact that for all intents and purposes, Dedue’s record showed he was dead and there was nothing they could do to change that on Pallas. 

Mercedes and Ashe walked through an archway towards a station lift and Ashe paused in his step, staring at the graffiti covering the archway. Mercedes glanced at it: it was in yellow paint and read “No Earth, No Mars, We should unite the Outer Stars”. It was a common slogan used by protesters who were in favour of the rebellions that were building on the Outer Colonies. 

“Ceres is free now, aren’t they?” Ashe asked her. 

Mercedes hummed and nodded. “Yes. Apparently they declared their independence just shortly after Mars declared war. I think they’ve been free for quite some time though. The leader of all of this,” she gestured to the graffiti, “lives on Ceres. I think he was just waiting for the right moment to announce it officially.”

Ashe fiddled with the bottom of his jacket. “What do you think of it all, if I can ask?”

Mercedes smiled faintly. “I’m a UEK medic,” Mercedes said evasively. “I don’t really think it matters what I think as long as people are safe.”

“On the contrary,” he argued, “it deeply matters what you think. You’re a Martian, aren’t you? You wouldn’t be here on a UEK station wearing one of our uniforms if you didn’t believe in the people here, not the systems.”  
  
Mercedes looked at him. Ashe seemed suddenly alarmed by the words he had spoken, but Mercedes was impressed. He was right, of course. She had left Mars with her mother years ago and it had been fear of repercussion from that that had driven them to Pallas, a UEK station, not a Martian colony. She liked the people on Pallas because they had welcomed her amongst them, for the most part, and gave her a home.

“You’re very insightful,” she complimented him. A quick scan of the area around them revealed that there were UEK officers in the vicinity, so she felt safe enough to continue. “I will admit that I do admire the intentions of this Alliance. Pallas isn’t a very political station, however,” Mercedes reminded. “Most people are very pro-Earth.”

Ashe raised an eyebrow. “That graffiti back there seems to suggest otherwise.”

Mercedes shook her head. “Our protests have been very peaceful so far. And small. Ceres’s were widely organized and some of them got violent. Ganymede has been in almost utter revolt recently, and I know Vesta is leaning that way as well.”

Mercedes reached out and pressed the call button for the lift. Ashe pulled a dead-looking comm out of his pocket and spun it idly as they waited for the lift. 

“What about the Martian colonies? What are they like?”

Mercedes thought about it. “The governors of Callisto and Ceres have never gotten along, so I’m not sure what’s been happening on Callisto. They’ve been in a rocky situation for a while though because their previous governor just had a heart attack. His son has succeeded him. Io has had their own share of protests as well and I think they’ve been receiving support from Ganymede. I suppose it’s possible that all three of the Jupiter colonies will unite to join Ceres.”

“And Hygiea?” Ashe asked. 

Mercedes studied his face. He seemed nervous about something related to that specific colony. She didn’t comment on it. “Mars has Hygiea in a blockade right now,” she admitted. “There was a conflict between Hygiea’s governor and the Martian envoy. Apparently Hygiea was supposed to hand over access to the ships stored in port there and didn’t. News about the blockade hasn’t exactly been frontpage compared to Ceres’s liberation and the war.”

The lift dinged as it arrived and they stepped onto it. Mercedes pressed the button for the docks and the lift began to rise to the outer levels of the station. Ashe traced a pattern on the blank screen of the broken comm and it flickered to life. Mercedes blinked, surprised. 

“Is that the comm you had with you? When you were brought through they said it was broken.”

Ashe laughed faintly and turned the now powered-on unit over in his hand. “I call it a zombie comm. Still works.” He pulled up a comm log and turned towards her. “I know you said getting to Earth was going to be incredibly difficult with the war going on, but what about Hygiea? Are there any ships or shuttles going there?”

“With a Martian blockade around it? There aren’t any UEK ships that would want to go there, much less any that are attempting to beat the blockade,” Mercedes explained. 

Ashe nodded slowly. “What are the odds I can get a small podship at the docks?”

“Depends on what you’re willing to pay.”

“I have the credits for it,” he said confidently. 

Mercedes shrugged. “Might be fairly high then. But you’d need a pilot.” 

She studied the young sailor next to her. When she had first seen him, bleeding from a gash on his head and unconscious, she had thought he looked incredibly young. The uniform seemed to add five years to his figure. Between the two of them, Ashe and Dedue, one had been a pilot according to the people who retrieved them from their original pod because it had no autopilot. She had naturally assumed it was Dedue, but now that she looked at Ashe, she supposed that she could see him sitting behind a console and piloting a craft. 

“You want to go to Hygeia,” Mercedes said slowly. 

Ashe looked at her, surprised, but eventually, he nodded. “I do.”

The lift dinged open at the docks and Mercedes stepped out. “Why?”

Ashe handed her the comm which was open to a chat log. She skimmed it and her eyes widened. She handed it back to Ashe. “You want to fly this person to Ceres?”

“I do.” Ashe looked around the docks, probably looking for Dedue. “I’m as good as dead to the UEN right now and there’s nothing I can do about that. If I send a comm, it’ll be ignored. I can’t get there in person, but I received her message. If I know about something terrible happening, shouldn’t I attempt to do something about it?”

Mercedes spotted Dedue and lifted a hand towards him. He noticed that Ashe was beside her and made his way towards them. She looked back at Ashe. “It’s a very noble idea,” she said. “I would do the same.”

He seemed surprised that she had agreed with him, but didn’t get a chance to reply before Dedue stepped out of the crowd towards them. He was frowning, but it did lighten when he saw Ashe looked alright. 

“Hello Ashe,” Dedue greeted gently. 

Ashe nodded. “Dedue.” He glanced at Mercedes before looking back at his fellow Earthen. “How are the efforts to get back to Earth?”

Dedue sighed heavily and Mercedes noted that he looked exhausted. “Not well,” he admitted. “The protests have locked up all official transports and the war has basically grounded the rest.”

Mercedes thought about the nasty look she had gotten from the officers in the square for the tattoo on her neck that showed her birthplace. She thought about the senseless violence of the war going on around them and the fact that Pallas could very soon be in danger from Mars if the red planet tried to take the war to the colonies. 

If things on Hygiea were as bad as the mysterious woman who had comm’ed Ashe said they were, then perhaps they could use a trained medic. And if not that, perhaps she could lend her services on Ceres to the newly independent people who were a part of the group that had always been kind to her in the past. Maybe joining with them could help her protect Pallas and the home she’d had for a few years.

Plus, by the looks on both Ashe and Dedue’s faces, there was a chance that all her hard work in helping to heal their injuries from the Fhirdiad’s explosion could be undone. 

“I think I know a way I can get you by the blockade around Hygiea,” Mercedes said to Ashe. 

Dedue looked between Ashe and Mercedes. “The Martian colony?” he questioned. 

“They need help,” Ashe said. He handed the comm log to Dedue who scanned it. “You can get us to the surface?” he asked Mercedes, hope glinting in his green eyes. 

She nodded. “I think so.” She touched Ashe’s shoulder reassuringly. “If these people need help, then I want to help.”

Ashe looked at Dedue earnestly. The larger man was still scanning over the comm log, but he eventually handed it back to Ashe. “There’s no getting to Earth from here. Perhaps we’ll have more luck elsewhere. I’ll join you.”


	8. Eight - Partners

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New friends, new rivals, new defectors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was supposed to finish something else before I posted this, but I decided to post first and hope it gives me the drive to finish what I'm working on.

Eight - Partners

* * *

**NEW YORK CITY, EARTH**

Felix wasn’t sure how to get rid of Cornelia’s assistant. Since she had first shown up in his hospital room with her crazy theory, he hadn’t been able to get rid of her. It had its ups and downs for sure. He definitely didn’t want her to run around blabbing about the fact that Dimitri might be alive when it was still a big ‘if’. They couldn’t give people false hope. 

He also didn’t want her to tell anyone about her suspicions about Cornelia. He had never liked the Secretary-General, so he wasn’t a danger to her, but Annette was Cornelia’s assistant. It would have been, arguably, very easy for Cornelia to get rid of the young redheaded woman. 

So, he let Annette keep coming by to visit him. She sat on his cot and read useless reports while he did the stupid physiotherapy exercises he had been assigned in an attempt to regain the previous strength and mobility he had had in his legs. Hours and hours spent hooked up to the pressure band of the med dock helped heal the physical damage to his spine, but Felix hated the way that his body felt right now. 

He had spent his whole life training to be in peak shape so that he could tackle missions as a UEMC soldier without hardly breaking a sweat. He had always been fluid and quick in training. It was his biggest strength as a soldier. He wasn’t tall or broad like others were, but that’s why he and Ingrid trained together. They were lean but powerful, and they understood how formations and combat worked. 

Waking up every morning with only slightly more feeling in his legs than the day before was frustrating. He had only just reached the point where he could get his knees to actually bend and lock when he needed them too. He still didn’t have enough feeling to stay on his feet on his own, but if he walked with support then he could walk without the humiliating parallel bars. 

This was another thing that Cornelia’s assistant was useful for. She was shorter than him, but he could lean on her and they could walk useless circles around his room to try to get his legs to cooperate. She was infuriatingly nice about it, filling the silence with her humming or mindless chatter that drew his attention away from how weak and useless he kept feeling. 

Most of the time when she visited, they kept their voices low and they talked about the things that were going on. Felix updated her on the military matters that his father was keeping him in the loop about and Annette brought news of the things that were discussed in Cornelia’s office regarding treaties and forward plans. 

The most irritating thing was the fact that Sylvain was on Mars. Sylvain was being kept a prisoner on Mars and Felix had no idea if Ingrid was even still alive. The emperor’s initial declaration of war had confirmed that both Sylvain and Ingrid were alive, but Felix knew as well as anyone that Ingrid was decidedly less valuable and more dangerous as a political prisoner. Whenever Annette mentioned either of them, Felix tended to clam up and end their little chats for the day. 

A week and a half after Emperor Edelgard declared war, Annette burst into Felix’s room with an idea. Of course, her timing was atrocious as Felix was sitting with his father for one of the unfortunate and unpleasant chats that happened every other day. Rodrigue had looked between Felix and the slightly red-faced, out of breath Annette and had just raised an eyebrow. He didn’t actually say anything about it, just telling Felix that he would come back later before he left the two alone in Felix’s recovery room. 

Annette watched his father leave curiously. She turned back to him and bit her lip. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“It’s fine. I’d rather talk to you than him any day,” Felix grumbled, averting his eyes. 

Annette lingered awkwardly in the doorway. He rolled his eyes and gestured to the chair his father had vacated. 

“I’m assuming you came here because you had something to tell me?”

Annette sat in the chair and took a deep breath. “They think they’ve recovered footage from your power armour.”   
  
Felix stared. “The suit cam was disabled when life support was enabled. And the initial assessment of it said that my capture card was corrupted.”

Annette tried and failed to smother a smile. “Well, as it looks like, Cornelia managed to get someone to get into it. It looks like we might be able to get footage of the crash site.”

Felix nodded slowly. “Right, but that footage will definitely be restricted access, probably only to the council.”

Annette’s energy deflated a bit. “I know, and I’m worried about that. What if it turns up something that Cornelia doesn’t like and she just buries it?”   
  
Felix studied her for a moment. “You want access to it, to watch it for yourself so that she can’t do that.”

“I do,” Annette agreed. 

“You have a plan to get access,” he guessed. She bit her lip and he frowned. “It hinges on me.” It wasn’t hard to put the pieces together at that point. “My father.”

She leaned forward, resting a hand on his knee. Felix pulled away. Annette looked guilty for a moment, but she didn’t try to touch him again. He didn’t want to go to his father. After the Eros Massacre, he had promised himself that he wouldn’t have to rely on his father ever again. And here he was, sitting in a recovery room with nearly useless legs, being asked to ask his father for help. 

“I know I don’t understand your relationship with your father,” Annette said quietly, “but I get it a little more than you think I do.”   
  
He looked at her, narrowing his eyes. “What would you know about that? You seem like you were raised by one of those perfect nuclear family types.”

He realized that he had said exactly the wrong thing when Annette’s hands curled into fists and her expression tightened. In all the time they had been spending together, he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen her look angry before. She looked angry now as she leaned away from him, dropping her eyes to her lap. 

Felix bit his tongue. He was digging himself a grave and there had to be a point where he stopped digging. He had touched a nerve and he knew exactly how much that could sting, so he just waited for Annette to say something. 

“Your father authorized the Venus probe, right? Into those Martian science vessels that were in low orbit around Venus?” she asked, her voice flat. 

“Yes,” he said. He watched her for a moment and tried to put the pieces together faster than his brain was seemingly capable of. 

He realized it too late. There had been something familiar about Cornelia’s assistant from the moment he’d met her. There was something about the fiery red hair and bright green eyes and the faint line of freckles across her nose. He had seen all of these features before, but he just hadn’t connected them because it was hard to reconcile his former CO and his icy demeanour to the bubbly young woman that held him up on his useless legs and hummed to him. 

“Gilbert Pronislav,” Felix said. “He’s your father.”

“Was,” Annette corrected. She frowned. “His real name was Gustav Dominic, but with his position, he didn’t want to sully our name or anything,” she mumbled bitterly. “Not like it mattered in the end.”

Gilbert Pronislav had been the Master Sergeant in charge of the Venus mission when it had gone dark after a miscommunication with Mars resulting in a shootout in Venus’s AO that destroyed the UEN vessel and severely crippled the MN ship so that the entirety of both crews had ended up perishing. It was a large stain on a rather peaceful recent history. Up until the last few weeks of course. 

Gilbert had also been the CO that had assigned Glenn to the UEN Duscur. Felix hadn’t been able to look the man in the face for nearly a year after that. Not to mention he had been irritatingly self-deprecating about the whole issue since there was literally nothing that anyone on Earth could have done about the Eros Massacre. 

“I hated your father,” Felix said abruptly. 

The anger in Annette’s face faded and she finally looked at him, brow furrowed. “What?”

Felix took a deep breath. “He assigned my brother to the UEN Duscur.”

Annette’s lips parted. “Oh,” she breathed. “I guess I probably should have been able to put that together. I heard he had died, but I didn’t,” she cut off, pinching her lips together. 

She didn’t look angry with him anymore, but now she just looked sad. That hadn’t been his intention either, so he exhaled deeply. 

“I’ll talk to my father. If you think that there could be something in my suit’s footage that’s worth seeing, I’ll talk to him.”

She lurched forward abruptly, throwing her arms around him. Felix almost fell onto his back on the cot, but he managed to catch her and their weight, curling an arm across her back. She was tiny and warm and hugging her felt very different from hugging Ingrid, the only other woman he had regularly embraced. As quickly as she had hugged him, she pulled back, a flush igniting red along the tops of her cheeks. 

“Sorry.”

Felix felt his own ears burning. “It’s okay,” he mumbled. 

He picked up his comm from the table next to the bed and sent a message to his father asking for them to talk as soon as he could. 

* * *

**VICTORIA, MARS**

Sylvain was pretty sure he was going insane. It had been a week and a half since he had first set foot on Mars and since his arrival, he had become entirely too familiar with the four walls of the little suite that he and Ingrid were confined to. 

There was a large dresser in the room with a suitable variety of clothing items, all suspiciously tailored to his size. The bathroom was decent enough with a shower, sink, and toilet plus the necessary amenities. Also in the room was a small table with two chairs and a single queen-sized bed. The external wall of the room was entirely window displays that Ingrid had succinctly determined were both incredibly reinforced and also bulletproof. There wasn’t going to be any heroic smashings through them. 

Ingrid’s med dock sat in one corner of the room, now going unused. She had sat through a week’s worth of cycles to recover from her gunshot wound, but thankfully there had been no complications. 

The same green-eyed Martian Ensign who had delivered their food on the first day was often the one who came by, at least twice a day, to deliver their food. Ingrid had voiced her distrust of the glint in the woman’s eyes after the first time she had visited, but Sylvain couldn’t get a read on her. He usually prided himself on the reads he could get on people: their ruling emotion, their rank, their intention. The Martian Ensign was blank to him. 

It was frustrating. Sylvain hated the feeling, so he had been pressing her buttons every time she had appeared, throwing her winks and little flirty lines. She stuttered through his praise, averting her gaze, but she could never quite hide the smirk on her face, so he knew that was a façade at least. 

Between that and the way that she seemed to ask just the right subtle questions, Sylvain was either sure he was actually insane, or the woman was a spy. He hadn’t told Ingrid his suspicions because since she already had her own, he knew she would change her behaviour just enough for it to be obvious that they knew about the spy. If the spy knew that they knew, she would stop coming. Since she was currently their only line to the world outside of their manicured prison cell, Sylvain didn’t want the brief relationship they’d built with her to go to waste. 

Overall, the suite was the most perfectly maintained prison cell Sylvain could have dreamed of, even if one of these days he was going to hurl the wardrobe at the window if there was even the slightest chance that the window would crack.

Ingrid wasn’t handling the situation particularly well. He had had a feeling she wouldn’t and it was frustrating for him to watch her get so wound up about a situation out of their control. Ingrid liked to have all her ducks in a line, so to be in a place where she was subject to an extremely political chess match against a figure mostly in the shadows was just about the absolute worst place she could have been.    
  
Sylvain did his best to assure her, but there were only so many times he could gently remind her to be grateful that they were alive before she socked him in the face. He really didn’t want to be on the receiving end of an Ingrid punch, even if she was still recovering from a serious wound because Ingrid was still a badass powerhouse. 

The last two days, she would rise early in the morning and sit in one of the chairs, staring out the window at the bustling military complex they were in. When Sylvain woke in the morning, she was never in the bed and the sheets were usually cold. He had been having trouble sleeping, but he knew it was nothing compared to what she was going through. 

Finally, when there was one day that he was pretty sure she hadn’t even gone to sleep, he woke himself up earlier than usual and pulled his chair next to her, just sitting quietly. 

“They don’t even know if we’re alive, Sylvain,” she said once she had determined he wasn’t going anywhere. 

He bit the inside of his cheek. He had considered that possibility, but it affected him far less than it affected Ingrid. She had her father, her brothers, and a whole cluster of Marines that she had built relationships with over the years of her training. He just had his parents–socialite and emotionally distanced mother and potentially partly-evil father who may have sold him out to this situation in the first place–and a handful of romantic conquests which he never intended to speak with again. 

They both had Felix, he supposed, but they didn’t even know what was happening with Felix. There hadn’t been much news of the injuries he had sustained in the aftermath of the Fhirdiad, and they had left before he had arrived home. If the whole being prisoners of war thing didn’t end up killing them, then Felix certainly would as soon as they stepped foot on Earth again. 

He didn’t get a chance to respond to Ingrid and to try and ease the heavy grief weighing on her before the door on the far side of the suite opened and the same brunette Ensign with green eyes entered, holding another tray of food. She balanced the tray on her hip and let her eyes track from Sylvain, who was looking at her, to Ingrid, who was still staring out the window. 

Sylvain stood up and crossed the suite quickly. She shifted the tray so that it was between them and put on a nervous expression, but Sylvain caught the ticking edge of her lip that betrayed her interest. 

“We want to send a comm to Earth,” he said. He had one card to play and he was going to have to play it eventually. “We’ve been here for almost two weeks and you haven’t let us confirm to our people that we’re still okay. There’s a war going on out there,” he reminded. 

He shifted his weight casually into a more confident, almost intimidating stance. She didn’t cower and dropped the terrified appearance, tilting her head and letting a smirk slide onto her face. 

“You’re good,” she complimented. “I hadn’t even noticed you had caught onto me.”

“That’s why I’m here, after all, isn’t it?” he pointed out, keeping his tone a little bit light. He was angry, but he had to betray at least a bit of disinterest or else they would never be trusted to send a comm back home. 

“You have my attention,” the woman said, settling her weight on her back foot which both made her seem relaxed and also gave her an easy escape route if she chose to end the conversation.

“From what I’ve guessed, holding a diplomat hostage in your capital served you two purposes: one, you had the flashy moment you needed that let you declare war and two, you have your insurance that Earth will think at least twice before trying to blow up your central dome because now there are innocent Martians as well as Earthens,” Sylvain said. 

The first reason had been obvious enough, but Ingrid had pointed out the other side to him. If it came down to it, Sylvain could see Cornelia pushing for a strike against Victoria, but sticking the children of two of the votes on the Security Council in Victoria meant that she would probably lose at least two votes in favour of that plan. 

“It’s Sylvain, right?” the Martian asked. 

“Yes,” he agreed. 

She shifted the tray so she was holding it in one hand. She extended her free hand for him to shake. “I’m Dorothea.”

He had no reason to believe that was her real name, especially with the fact that his guess had clearly been correct in pegging her as some kind of spy, but he needed something from her, so he played along, shaking her hand. 

Dorothea looked past him, towards Ingrid, and then she held out the tray to Sylvain. He took it from her, but she didn’t leave immediately, hesitating before she vanished. “I’ll see what I can do about the comm.” Then she pivoted and strode out the door. It slid shut behind her and Sylvain and Ingrid were alone. 

He turned back and found that Ingrid had turned around and was staring at him. “Why did you do that?” she asked. 

“We deserve to tell our families we are still alive. Keeps the insurance up that they actually won’t blow up Victoria, you know?”   
  
Ingrid smiled faintly. She was wearing some of the men’s clothes from the wardrobe since they hadn’t obviously expected more than one person to be in the suite. It reminded Sylvain of the way that she used to look when they were younger and somewhere deep and buried inside of him, his heart thudded. 

* * *

**VICTORIA, MARS**

One of her naval captains was giving his report when Dorothea snuck in the side door to the room. Edelgard kept her eyes fixed on the presenter, but she did let the corner of her mouth creep into a frown to display her irritation at the other woman. Hubert faded away from her side for a moment, exchanging a few hushed words with the other intelligence operative. 

Edelgard studied the fleet diagram on the hologram before her. A battle had broken out in Callisto’s AO, but Mars appeared to be winning it. She blinked and black spots darted across her vision. She ignored her blip in focus and pointed out a blinking light on the projection. 

“What is this ship? It doesn’t have a UEN display and it’s not one of ours.”

The captain frowned. “It’s a fleet ship, but they don’t seem to be transmitting on either a UEK or Martian official frequency.”

Edelgard narrowed her eyes. “Have you done a scan of the surrounding regions for other ships with those transponder codes?”

“Yes. There are a few,” the captain paused, pointing out the yellow blips on the display. “They’re mostly relief ships and civilian vessels, but, again, they don’t have UEN branding.”

“Callisto is our colony. There wouldn’t be Earthen relief vessels around it and those ships aren’t ours. Where are they from?” she demanded, leaning forward. 

The captain floundered and Edelgard sighed. She looked around the meeting room. The generals and captains present all seemed equally confused at the question and Edelgard’s patience thinned. She looked at Hubert and raised an eyebrow. 

He cleared his throat and stepped forward. “Maybe you can’t get an official read on their transponders, but if you’d just dipped your finger into the plethora of illegal frequencies that you’ve all been briefed on how to use and comprehend,” Hubert said dryly, “you would have easily noticed that all these transponders seem to bounce between Callisto, Ganymede, and Ceres.”

Edelgard sighed. “Let me guess, this has to do with that little rebellion brewing on Ceres?”

“It would appear,” Hubert agreed. 

Edelgard waved her hand at the room full of military officials. “All of you, just, get out.” Her vision blurred and she closed her eyes, rubbing her temples. 

There were various scuffles and murmurs around the room as it cleared out. Edelgard waited until most of those voices were gone before she opened her eyes and found the room to still be occupied by the people she had hoped would stay: Dorothea, Hubert, and Ferdinand. 

“Tell me about Ceres,” she requested. 

Hubert swiped something on his comm and threw up a hologram of the dwarf planet. “Our reports from the AO and the other colonies show that its governor seems to have fully seized control of the station over the UEK.” One of his eyebrows twitched in a brief show of annoyance. “We have been unfortunately unable to monitor the situation on the ground.”

“Why?” Ferdinand asked, standing up and pacing around the table, studying the hologram. “If they’re not under Earth’s control, shouldn’t it be easier to infiltrate.”

“Theoretically, yes,” Hubert agreed. “But, I’ve sent six separate spies to the surface. Two were reported as killed in a mysterious water poisoning accident. Three were spaced during workplace accidents and one was mysteriously killed during the mostly peaceful protests.”

“Someone knows they’re there and hunts them down,” Dorothea explained, folding her arms. 

Edelgard rubbed her temples. “The governor of Ceres, that’s von Riegan, isn’t it? The one who caught and killed the team that took care of Governor Gloucester.”

“Yes,” Hubert said. “It appears that whatever movement he’s started on Ceres is spreading. I tracked his travel records recently. He’s paid several visits to Ganymede, Vesta, and even one to Io and Callisto.”

Edelgard scowled. “Next time you have a lock on his position, shoot him. He can liberate Earth’s colonies all he would like, but if he goes near Io or Callisto I want him turned to space dust.”

“Easier said than done,” Dorothea cut in. “I looked into him too and he’s got some damn good people on his side.” She stole a glance at Hubert. “If anything, his spy network actually outranks ours. You’ll never find out where he’s been until he’s already left.”

Edelgard sighed. “Of course. Since nothing can be easy, can it?” A headache pounded behind her eyes and she gritted her teeth. “Ferdinand, can you fetch Linhardt for me? Tell him it's urgent.”

Ferdinand looked mildly surprised, but he bowed respectfully and left the room. Dorothea got the hint and followed him out the door, leaving Edelgard with Hubert. She slouched in her seat as soon as they were alone. 

“It’s getting worse, isn’t it?” Hubert asked. 

“No,” Edelgard lied. 

“Your Majesty,” he said. “Don’t forget I am the one who taught you how to lie.” He shifted closer to her and pulled a small bottle of pills out of one of his pockets. “To tide you over until Linhardt can bring the injection.”

Edelgard took the pills gratefully. She swallowed one and bit her tongue to keep the rolling wave of nausea at bay. Her headache intensified, but her body had been used to these sensations for long enough that once the burn in her throat began, the headache began to fade. 

“Surely this warrants a brief respite on Phobos,” Hubert said. “The gravity there will be far easier on your body.”

“No,” Edelgard asserted. “There is a war going on. I am needed here.”

Hubert sighed. “I do wish you would stop inviting your uncle here every time you need him to resupply you though. It is easy enough to arrange a third party to do the transaction.”

She shrugged helplessly. “I am not in much of a position to bargain with him at the moment. He quite literally holds my future in his palm. Hubert. Without his treatment, my gravity sickness will kill me slowly and painfully. Without his weapons, we  _ will  _ lose this war with Earth. Their fleet far outnumbers ours and though we may have some superior weapons of our own, the kinds of things Arundel is dealing in are our best hope.”

“And you shall continue to ignore that he blatantly destroyed the one opportunity we had to avoid this war?”

She pressed her lips together. “Dimitri understood the risks he was taking when he boarded the Fhirdiad. Maybe I did intend to meet with him, but we are fundamentally different and we always have been. There is an equal possibility that any meeting between Dimitri and I would have led to war anyway.”

Before Hubert could reply, the door to the meeting room opened. Ferdinand’s expression was grim as he opened the door, not waiting for an invitation. Dorothea followed him in, a frown marring her pretty features. Edelgard sat forward, alarmed. Bernadetta and Linhardt entered after Dorothea. Bernadetta looked extremely nervous, but she always tended to. Linhardt’s face was schooled into a neutral expression, but Edelgard had enough experience with him that she was able to pick up the hint of nervousness in his blue eyes. 

There was a notable absence in the room of Edelgard’s inner circle and she stood up, making the connection before any words had to be said. Next to her, Hubert came to the same conclusion. 

“Where’s Caspar?”

“I haven’t seen him,” Linhardt replied calmly. 

Edelgard sighed and put her face in her hands. “Please tell me you’re kidding.”

“He’s my friend, not my pet, Your Majesty,” Linhardt replied sharply. 

Edelgard frowned. Linhardt and Caspar had been friends since they were very little and there was rarely one without the other, so the fact that even Linhardt did not know his friend’s location was concerning. 

“Bernadetta?”

“He was supposed to meet me on the third hill today, but he never came so I went to Linhardt.”

“Bernadetta was there when I arrived to fetch Linhardt,” Ferdinand confirmed. “On the way here I took the liberty to pull up his recent transmissions. His comm pinged in his apartment so I asked Dorothea to check it out while I was returning back with these two.”

Dorothea placed a blank comm on the meeting table. “Empty apartment,” she said. 

“Put a trace out on him,” Edelgard said immediately. “Where would he have gone?” she asked Linhardt. “You knew him the best.”

Linhardt stared her down. “I don’t know,” he said calmly. 

Edelgard didn’t believe him, but she couldn’t afford to piss off another member of her inner circle. She turned to Hubert. “Find him. I want to know where he has been, where he’s going and what the hell he thinks he’s doing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a brief breakdown of the main story locations since I know it can get a bit confusing~!
> 
> **Earth** , controlled by the United Earth Kingdom, owns the following territories:  
> Selene (Earth’s Moon)  
> Vesta (Asteroid in the Belt)  
> Pallas (Asteroid in the Belt)  
> Ceres (Asteroid in the Belt)  
> Ganymede (Moon of Jupiter)  
> Phoebe Research Station (small, abandoned research station on one of Saturn's moons)  
> Eros (former colony in the Belt, destroyed during the Eros Massacre)
> 
> **Mars** , controlled by the Martian Empire, owns the following territories:  
> Phobos (larger of Mars’s two moons)  
> Deimos (smaller of Mars’s two moons)  
> Hygiea (Asteroid in the Belt)  
> Io (Moon of Jupiter)  
> Callisto (Moon of Jupiter)  
> 


	9. Nine - First Contact

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Alliance gains an ally. The Seiros reaches out. The Revolution gains a foothold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said probably only one more update this week... But I want to get chapter 10 out... we'll see if that actually works out in my favour, but I don't have to work tomorrow so maybe!
> 
> Also! An amazing reader, [Bayleaf6399](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bayleaf6399/pseuds/Bayleaf6399), has made a beautiful map of the system with a legend that explains which territories belong to which groups!
> 
> I'm not sure how the quality will be here, but it's also on my Tumblr **[here](https://nicolewrites.tumblr.com/post/623589101311082496/mechatronic-gamer-i-was-very-bored-today-so-i)**

Nine - First Contact

* * *

**CERES STATION, OUTER COLONIES**

“What the hell does Shamir mean when she says there’s something we ought to see?” Hilda demanded, tapping her foot against the floor of the elevator. 

Claude shrugged. “Honestly, I have no idea. I know she’s been clearing the docks each day to make sure that Mars and Earth stop trying to land spies, but she has the authority to deal with that herself. I’m not sure why she would call us down if it was something simple like that.”

Hilda crossed her arms. “This had better be important,” she grumbled. 

Claude studied her. Hilda had been his right-hand woman for a couple of years since she moved to Ceres. Originally the move had been spurred by her older brother Holst’s frustratingly overprotective behaviour, but now Hilda stuck around on her own accord. As much as she claimed to hate work and as much as she whined about the responsibilities that she took on, she was an excellent partner for Claude to have. 

He was fairly certain that his whole operation wouldn’t have gotten off the ground without Hilda. He liked secrets and mystery and keeping people on their toes which weren’t necessarily the best set of traits for someone trying to build an alliance of detached colonies to have. Hilda, on the other hand, was blunt and still wonderfully charming. 

The lift doors slid open and Claude led the way across the access dock of the station towards the security room where Shamir had asked them to meet her. Claude did a quick scan of the docks. There was nothing that seemed particularly out of place to him: colony vessels and transport ships. There were a few rougher scrap ships and a couple of slingshot vessels, but that was typical for Ceres. 

They had almost reached the security door when Claude spotted the ship that was probably the source of whatever issue was befalling them. It was an MN Duster-class patrol ship. It was docked crookedly but mostly out of sight on the main deck of the access dock, but it was definitely not a ship that was normally stored there. 

His hand landed on his gun instinctually and he grabbed Hilda’s arm with his other hand, dragging them both to a stop. They stood and stared at the vessel for a long moment and Claude finally drew his gun. Hilda looked at it distastefully. 

“So quick to assume everyone’s an enemy,” she grumbled, but Claude caught her hand sliding to where she had a taser concealed on her person. 

“You flatter me,” he replied dryly. 

Gun still in one hand, he scanned his palm on the access panel beside the door to the security room and the door slid open. Claude led Hilda into the room and immediately hit the button to close the door behind them as he took in the situation in the room. 

Shamir Nevrand, one of Claude’s best spies, stood in the centre of the room, glowering at the man who sat in a chair in front of her. The man had his head in his hands, fingers twisting in his own light blue-silver hair. He was wearing a Martian Navy uniform so it was easy enough to pin him as the one who had flown the MN patrol ship from a Martian fleet to the station on Ceres. 

Shamir put a hand on her hip and nodded to Claude and Hilda as they entered. “You made it.”

Claude raised an eyebrow, looking between his ally and the Martian sailor. “What’s going on here?”

“He had access to an Alliance transmitter frequency but hasn’t found it relevant to explain how a Martian Ensign managed to end up with that frequency much less the reason he came to Ceres in the first place. He wanted to speak with whoever was in charge.”

“Well,” Claude said, “Ensign, you’ve certainly got my attention, so I would recommend you find a way to try and keep it.”

The Martian finally looked up at him. Claude was surprised at the youth on the sailor’s face. He couldn’t have been any older than Claude himself was. Claude watched as recognition flickered across the Martian’s face as he studied both Claude and Hilda. Claude knew he had never met the man before, so there was only one explanation as to why there was a familiarity in the sailor’s face. 

Claude rounded on Hilda. “A word, Hilda,” he said. He grabbed her arm and tugged her to the far side of the room. 

Claude crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. He let his gaze settle on her, ensuring that his face was schooled into perfect neutrality. He wanted her to itch under his gaze. Hilda just put a hand on her hip and raised a challenging eyebrow at him. They stared at each other for a moment longer before Claude decided he didn’t have enough time to waste on this. 

“Were you going to tell me you’d given transmission codes to a Martian?”

Her gaze darted towards the Martian sailor who Claude could feel was staring at the two of them as they spoke in hushed tones. Hilda frowned at Claude and raised her chin, a picture of stubbornness. 

“Would you have let me if I’d told you I was going to do it?”

“No,” he said immediately. 

“Then there’s your reason that I didn’t tell you,” she rebuked easily. “I wanted him here and you wouldn’t have so I made that call myself. You gave me the power to do that when you brought me in, Claude, if I have to remind you.”

He rolled his eyes. “Fine. He’s already here. I’ll hear him out before I decide if I want to space him or not.”

Claude brushed past Hilda and walked over to the Martian. The sailor straightened, but he couldn’t help the way his blue eyes kept darting to Hilda behind Claude. Claude snapped his fingers in the man’s face and he blinked quickly. 

“Alright, Ensign, let’s hear it.”

“My name is Caspar Bergliez,” the man began quickly. “I was a sailor in the Martian Navy and I heard about the operation you guys were putting together here on Ceres. I have a bone to pick with the Navy, but I’m a soldier and a good sailor so I figured you could use as many hands.”

“Alright,” Claude started. “Give me a reason to keep you here.”

Caspar grinned toothily. “Right here.” He reached into his jacket and pulled out a datapad. “I think you’ll be interested in what’s on here.

Claude took it and turned it on. He scrolled through the first few pages and found a complete record of Mars’s surveillance on Ceres. Beyond that, there was a detailed chart displaying the locations of what had to be half of Mars’s galactic fleet. There were more detailed charts attached that were of areas around Hygiea, Io, and Callisto. 

Claude looked from the datapad to the Martian. “All of this data, it’s all got to be highly classified and restricted.”

Caspar met his curious gaze with a confident grin. “I think you’ll find some reports hot off the Martian Intelligence desk too. Data like that has got to be useful for the stuff you’ve got planned, right?”

Claude turned the display on the datapad off. “Who did you run with back on Mars that you had access to this?”

“Try the Emperor’s inner circle,” Hilda said as she brushed past Claude to walk up to Caspar. She leaned against the side of the chair he was sitting in and let the fingers of one hand comb through his hair casually. She glanced back at Claude, looking smug. “You can say thank you to me anytime, Claude.” 

Claude shook his head fondly. He waved Shamir away. “We can take it from here. Can you deal with getting that ship somewhere that it won’t draw quite as many eyes? It’ll come in handy later, but I don’t need it to be seen next time someone tries to drop a probe down here.”

“Got it,” Shamir said, immediately turning and leaving the room. 

Claude looked back at Caspar. “What’s a sailor from Edelgard’s inner circle doing switching sides?”

Hilda’s hand squeezed Caspar’s shoulder encouragingly and he sighed. “They’re going about it all wrong. Edelgard keeps insisting we didn’t shoot Dimitri, but she’s the one who made the first strike by taking those Earthens to start the war.” Caspar’s expression darkened. “She killed the entire team that came with them and anyone who was in the Embassy.” He shook his head. “That’s not how wars deserve to be fought.”

“So why us? Why us and not Earth?” Claude prompted. “We’re not at war with anyone.”

“Yet,” Hilda added dryly and Claude sighed. 

“Because I have a condition,” Caspar said. “I’ll give you that datapad and everything else I know about Mars so that you can effectively fight them when the time comes for Io and Callisto to officially declare independence, but I want you to bring in Hygiea too.”

Claude raised an eyebrow. “Hygiea? The Martian colony that’s currently under a blockade?”

Caspar’s eyes narrowed. “I know you’re running smuggling ships in already. I have a friend there. I want you to take Hygiea and I want to help.”

* * *

**SPACESHIP SEIROS, THE ASTEROID BELT**

It took them too long to finally trace the path they needed. Byleth and her AI, Sothis spent a week looking at every way that they could send a direct transmission to Earth. Almost every single one of those options resulted in immediate vaporization of the Seiros for transmitting on closed UEN channels by either UEN vessels or MN vessels which didn’t want to allow productive communication between UEN ships. 

The next three days Byleth spent creating bouncer plots where she could ping multiple stations to disguise both the location of the ship as well as the transmitter until the message was received by who they needed it to be received by. Unfortunately, Mars had frustratingly sophisticated transmission interceptors that would catch 98 percent of the paths that the Seiros attempted to broadcast. 

Finally, Sothis managed to craft a route that hit on satellites around a mix of Martian and Earthen territories that would scramble their location just enough that there was a chance they could get away without being located. 

Dimitri was almost at his breaking point on the day that Byleth finally tracked him down and said that they were ready to try. He felt bad. She was putting her life and the safety of the ship she had grown up on in the line of fire for a potentially very dangerous transmission that might not even make it to its destination. 

They stood across from each other at the central console on the Seiros’s command deck and Dimitri studied the bouncer plot. It seemed much more stable than any of the other simulations they’d run in the last couple of days. Sothis seemed sure it would work and Byleth had faith in her AI, so all Dimitri could do was have faith in the woman that had saved his life. 

“Who should I attempt to contact? I can give them an encrypted tightbeam line that’ll give them a response window with around a 38-minute delay on transmission speed. Ideally, they’ll use the line to reply to us and not, you know, blast us to space dust,” Byleth explained. 

Dimitri bit the inside of his cheek. The obvious thing to do was to contact the central terminal of the Security Council so that all of the people on the Council would receive the message. Yet, for some reason, his gut instinct was not to do that. It felt wrong to him and Dimitri had done enough stupid things in the last few weeks that he decided to trust his gut for once. 

“Admiral Rodrigue Fraldarius. He’s a sitting member of the Security Council. He was my father’s best friend. If anyone can be trusted, it’s him.”

Byleth nodded and punched a few commands into the console so that it could start routing a clear transmission path to Rodrigue’s personal comm. She glanced up at him as her system ran and tilted her head. 

“Shouldn’t you send it to your Secretary-General? She’s the leader of your council, isn’t she?”

Dimitri sighed. “Protocol would suggest that, but something about Cornelia bothers me. When she first began rising to prominence in politics, my father was King. He liked her well enough. He used to tell me that she was ambitious and smart and would make a great leader someday. He was the one who encouraged her to run for Secretary-General. She won, naturally, and that was the same year as the Eros Massacre.”

Byleth’s breath caught. “Oh, I didn’t know. Your parents were on the UEN Duscur, right?”

Dimitri looked down, studying his hands on the edge of the console so that he didn’t have to look into her earnest blue eyes. “I was too,” he admitted. “When the rebels sabotaged the ship, it was a miracle I survived the explosion.” He heard shoes tap on the metal floor before a slender hand reached into his field of view and rested atop his hand. “When I got back, Cornelia had her hooks in the council. She’s still brilliantly smart and she cares a lot for Earth, but she never even wasted a second to grieve for my parents, regardless of what my father did to help her career.”

“That rubs me the wrong way,” Byleth said. 

“I didn’t pick up on it at first, but Dedue pointed it out to me about a year and a half ago. I tried to look into the issue, but I think she found out I was probing her and she buried all her records. I could only get her financials and the only thing even remotely suspicious she had done was fund a research project on Selene,” Dimitri continued. 

Byleth tensed at the mention of Earth’s moon, retracting her hand quickly. Dimitri looked towards her, but she had turned away from him, studying a monitor on the wall of the command deck. He watched her for a moment longer, but her resolve was evidently stronger than his so he eventually gave up and looked back at the bouncer plot in front of him. It was nearly done calibrating. 

“Anyway,” he said, “Rodrigue is a good man. If there’s anyone we can trust, it’ll be him.”

The console flashed green. “ _That’s it, then,_ ” the AI said brightly. “ _We’re ready to record whenever you are, Your Highness_.”

Dimitri nodded. “Can you give me a visual frame?”

The display in front of him changed to show his own face. His clothes were rumpled and his hair looked less polished than it normally would be when he had an entire team of stylists grooming him for public appearances. He straightened his shoulders and lifted his chin, adopting the professional stance he had practiced since he was around five years old. 

“Open communication,” he said and the light blinked on. “Rodrigue, this will probably come as a shock to you, but I swear there’s nothing funny going on. My father’s name was Lambert and you two used to sit on the roof at the base and see who could spit sunflower seeds further off the edge of the roof. Hopefully, that’s enough to convince you this is me and not some cruel interpretation of one.”

“My pod was rescued in Pallas’s AO by,” he paused, looking at Byleth who was just staring at him, “a neutral party and I am well.” He swallowed. “Please, tell me what has happened back home. If we are truly at war with Mars, I can only hope it is not because they destroyed the Fhirdiad. Attached to this message is a tightbeam line that you can use to hail this ship directly and securely.”

He nodded, and the light cut off as the active recording ended. His shoulders sagged with relief, and he breathed out warily. He looked at Byleth again. 

“Now what?”

“We wait,” she said calmly. “There’s a delay on both ends so it’ll be over an hour before we get a reply back.” She looked him up and down. “You should eat something. I think there’s something already made in the galley if you’d like.”

He smiled faintly. “And when was the last time you ate something?”

She blinked at him owlishly as if she hadn’t even considered him turning her own desire to care for his well-being back on her. “I ate this morning,” she replied, surprised. 

“ _You did not!_ ” Sothis argued. “ _You were going to, but you got distracted by this bouncer plot before you actually ate anything._ ”

Dimitri glanced up at one of the cameras on the deck and then looked back at Byleth, raising an eyebrow. “It seems Sothis knows all, doesn’t she?”

“ _Of course I do!_ ” the AI chimed, sounding as pleased as a computer could sound. 

Byleth rolled her eyes. “Well, let’s both go eat then. Sothis, return any comm we get on the tightbeam to the galley holo.”

Dimitri followed Byleth off the command deck and back to the galley. He sat at the table and watched as she flitted about the room, checking the green panels and queuing herself a coffee from the machine before she pulled a tray out of the fridge and pulled the lid off of it. She hummed to herself as she stuck it in the microwave to warm up. 

Dimitri was struck suddenly with a realization that Byleth had been living alone on this ship for more than a few years. She seemed to be fine around him for the most part, but there was something lighter about her when she seemed to think he wasn’t watching her or when she forgot that he was. She rocked onto her toes and fiddled with the ends of her blue hair and tapped her fingers along open surfaces. 

It was shockingly endearing and he had no idea what to do with that thought. 

He didn’t linger on it too long as Byleth deposited a plate of pasta in front of him and they dug into the meal together. He hadn’t even realized that he was hungry, but as he started to eat he knew that he definitely had been. They killed quite a bit of time in the galley, mostly just eating, but Dimitri was still antsy about the transmission. 

“Why did you tense up when I mentioned the research on Selene earlier?” he asked bluntly. 

Byleth froze, her coffee cup halfway to her mouth. She lowered it, pressing her lips together and Dimitri saw pain flash in her eyes. “I haven’t thought about Selene in a long time.”

He didn’t say anything, but he waited for her to be ready. Whatever nerve he had just pressed was obviously a lot stronger than he had been expecting it to be, but he was morbidly curious. He wanted to know why talking about his planet’s moon made her so uncomfortable. 

“I was born on Selene,” she admitted finally and Dimitri stared. 

* * *

**HYGIEA AO, OUTER COLONIES**

“That should do it,” Dedue called. 

Ashe took a deep breath and spun the dial next to the flight controls. The console beeped and the transmitter flashed blue for a second before it switched to yellow. He practically collapsed in his seat in relief. He spun his chair to look at the other two on board the ship and grinned. 

“We’re officially flying Martian colours now,” he said brightly. 

Mercedes clapped her hands. “I’m so glad that worked!” Her gaze flickered to the monitor that was displaying the view of the asteroid they were orbiting and her smile shrunk. “I’m sorry it took so long for this to work. I could have sworn the recoding was easier last time.”

Ashe shook his head. “Don’t apologize. These crafts are small and aren’t built to be rewired, so it’s a miracle that we managed to accomplish that at all.”

“That would be thanks to you,” Dedue pointed out. “Mercedes and I mostly just connected wires and swapped lines when you told us too.”

Ashe felt himself blush a bit. “I happen to have a bit of experience with rewiring systems to present as something they’re not, but I’ve never worked with Martian transponder codes before.”

Mercedes smiled again. “Well, if our colours are good, shall we see if we can beat this blockade and get down to the surface?”

Ashe nodded. “We’re going to do a drop and flip to push out of orbit. That should be enough to knock us off their sensors long enough for them not to question our sudden appearance as a Martian vessel.” He grabbed one of the straps on the pilot’s chair and pulled it over his shoulder. “We should strap in.”

He turned back to the flight controls in front of him and pulled up a visual of Hygiea’s AO. The station’s dock site was on the opposite side of the rock from them, so the drop and flip maneuver would send them through the vertical orbit, not the lateral one, to put them above the docking bay. 

Ashe had done this maneuver dozens of times in flight simulators back on Earth, but he had never attempted to pull it off in real life before. He plotted the course and engaged the ship’s drive. The ship lurched around them as the gravity inside spun as they were twisted in their seats as the whole ship rotated. He pressed forward on the controls and pushed them into a steep, curving drop. 

“The Martian fleet command ship just scanned us,” Dedue said. “We came up as a Martian supply hauler and they dropped the scan. We’re clear.”

Ashe grinned and coaxed the ship into a steeper dive. He gritted his teeth as the gravity from the asteroid pulled the ship further down. He kept his hands steady on the controls as he locked onto the access bay. The giant steel doors slid open, granting them landing access and Ashe guided the ship in. 

His landing wasn’t perfect as there was a heavy bump as they hit the ground that caused his head to snap forward and back against the headrest of his chair. Ashe winced as his head pounded. His time on Pallas had mostly healed his injuries from after the Fhirdiad, but Mercedes had confirmed he did still have a lingering head injury.

He blinked away the pain and powered down the ship before releasing his restraints and standing from the chair. Mercedes and Dedue unbuckled as well and Ashe walked over to the monitor displaying the outside of the ship and scanned their surroundings. 

“Doesn’t look like there’s a patrol in the docks right now, but I have a funny feeling we should try not to be stopped by one,” he suggested. 

Mercedes touched his arm lightly and gestured to the UEN crest on his jacket. “That seems like a sure-fire way to get asked a lot of questions.”

Ashe nodded and quickly stripped the jacket off, leaving him in a black t-shirt and plain grey pants. It would have to do for the short amount of time they planned on being on the colony. He pulled his comm out of his pocket and checked his logs. He had confirmed with the mysterious woman on Hygiea that he had a craft and would be coming down to the surface a week ago. She had given him a location but told him not to tell her which day they came down, saying she’d check every day for secrecy’s sake. 

Dedue copied Ashe’s actions, shedding his jacket and he stowed both coats in a cupboard where they were out of sight. Mercedes had just changed into plain medic’s scrubs that bore no planetary insignia to indicate which side she worked for. They certainly weren’t the best disguises, but they would do for the time being. 

“Alright,” Ashe said, “I’m going to head to the meeting spot. I should be back within a few hours. You guys are alright to stay with the ship?”

Mercedes nodded. “We’ll move some crates on and off the ship to confuse their dock manifestos and make it seem like we’re a real shipping vessel.”

“And we’ll do a scan of the other ships docked here,” Dedue added.

Ashe straightened his shirt. “Alright. I’ll head out then.” He lowered the hatch on the base of the ship and slipped out, dropping neatly onto his feet on the station floor. 

He broke into a quick jog across the hangar and quickly made his way to the exit. He slipped out of the main hangar into a bustling port and immediately dropped back to a walk. He stuck to the outside of the area, skirting the edges in an attempt to avoid drawing attention. In the week they had spent drifting and orbiting in Hygiea’s AO as they reformatted the ship’s transponders, he had studied and memorized the dock layout for Hygiea. 

He easily found his way to the lift and pressed a key for one of the lower levels, the one where his meeting spot was supposed to be set. When the lift opened up to the level he had chosen, Ashe immediately heard the roaring of crowds. He stared out of the lift in surprise at the ongoing riot right in front of him. 

Martian soldiers decked out in riot gear with shock batons and large shields were clashing with what looked like unarmed, desperate protestors. Some of the protestors held signs and others were just throwing themselves at the Martians in an attempt to try and break the line created by the officers. Mercedes had told Ashe a bit about the protests that had been happening on Pallas, but she had said they were mostly peaceful. These protests were clearly not peaceful and fell much more in line with the desperation of the message that he had received over two weeks ago back on Earth. 

Feeling slightly sick to his stomach, Ashe walked around the outside of the square where the protest was ongoing. He stuck to the shadows of pillars and tried his best to stay out of the lines of sights of the Martian officers doing crowd control. His heart was pounding, but he could barely hear himself think over the yelling that was happening in the square next to him. 

Ashe closed his eyes and took a deep breath, pressing his shaking palms against his legs to try and ground himself in the moment. Ordinarily, getting to walk around a colony would have been a very unique and interesting experience for an Earthen-born sailor, but Ashe was too tense to appreciate it. The gravity here felt similar to on Pallas: every step felt lighter and his stomach felt a bit twisted. Although, he might have just been feeling ill due to his nerves. 

He focused on the map of the station he had memorized and made his way along one of the smaller side streets towards the rendezvous point the woman had set. At first, he was worried that he had taken a wrong turn, but then he caught sight of the young woman from the comm. She was sitting on a crate near an alleyway, holding a long staff that she was occasionally tapping against the ground. 

He approached her. “I don’t suppose you know where I could find a pilot, do you?” he asked quietly. 

The woman startled and looked down at him. Her reddish-brown eyes widened a fraction and she jumped down off the crate. “I might be having an idea,” she replied. 

Her voice had a charming lilt to it that many of the Colonists had. She grabbed Ashe’s arm and pulled him into the alley they were standing next to. They walked down it twenty feet to be away from the main street and the woman released him, looking him up and down. 

“I was not expecting you today,” she admitted.

Ashe mustered a smile. “I told you I would find a way here. I want to help you.”

Her shoulders slumped a bit and she smiled faintly at him in return. “Thank you.” She hesitated for a moment, studying him again before she continued. “I am Petra Macneary. My grandfather is the governor of Hygiea.”

Ashe blinked. He hadn’t expected her to be the granddaughter of the governor of the colony. “I’m Ashe Ubert,” he replied. 

“Are you with the Alliance?” Petra asked, tilting her head curiously. 

Ashe shook his head. “No, I’m actually from Earth,” he admitted. 

Petra stared at him. “You are an Earthen? What are you doing tapping Belt frequencies then?”

He scratched the back of his head. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I think it was mostly an accident, but I ended up on Pallas and then you asked if I could take you to Ceres.” He glanced back to the entrance of the alley. “I saw the protest back in the square. Have things been bad here?”

Petra reached out and grasped his hand. “Things are much worse recently,” she admitted. “And, Ashe of Earth, I thank you for coming to Hygiea.” Sadness flickered over her expression. “Though I fear I may have brought you here for nothing.”

“What?”

“I cannot be leaving Hygiea right now,” Petra confessed. “If I am leaving, the Martians will kill my grandfather and assume complete control of the station. It will all be for nothing.”

Ashe’s heart sunk. He dropped his gaze to where Petra was still holding his hand. He wracked his brain for a solution and finally dragged his eyes back up to her. “Ceres. You said there’s a revolution bringing on Ceres. What if I brought the revolution to you?”

Petra perked up. “That is a possibility?”

“I think,” Ashe said, “if you can offer something to their revolution then they would have a reason to break Mars’s blockade.”

Petra’s smile widened. “It is a good thing we have been concealing some of our warships from Mars as they are accusing us of doing.” She squeezed his hand. “If you can be bringing the revolution to Hygiea, then my people can fight back and we will be free.”

The look on her face was so trusting and earnest. Her dark hair was in a ponytail that draped over one shoulder and she looked no older than Ashe was. He smiled back at her.

“I guess I should probably head to Ceres then if we have a revolution to start.”


	10. Ten - Step Forward, Step Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Alliance plots. Dorothea connects. Annette bleeds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy 1 year anniversary to Fire Emblem Three Houses! I'm back from my brief vacation so we should be back to uploading based on my writing schedule!

Ten - Step Forward, Step Back

* * *

**CERES STATION, OUTER COLONIES**

The pilot that Claude had sent to pick her up on Io had apologized thirty times since she’d gotten on board the ship. Normally, Lysithea might have lost her temper at him, but he just seemed like he was unusually nervous. Plus, he was actually a very good pilot from the flight she’d had to Ceres. 

There was something reassuring about being in zero gravity. Every part of her body felt lighter and the oppressive weight that hung over her every day eased, just a bit. Of course, as soon as the ship’s artificial gravity kicked back in, it was almost like being on Io, as usual. The take-off and touchdown parts of the flight were the worst as they pressed through 1.5g gravity fields to safely land. 

It took all of her strength not to blackout upon reentry, but she was stubborn, so she hung on. She had taken her meds this morning in preparation for the flight which definitely helped, even if it meant that she constantly wanted to puke. 

Finally, on Ceres, Lysithea had exited the shuttle ship and made her way onto the docks to be greeted by Claude and Leonie, the UEN defector that had joined their rag-tag group of wanna-be revolutionaries. 

Lysithea folded her arms and stared at Claude. “What’s with the welcome mat?” she asked sarcastically. 

Claude grinned at her in that very annoying, very charming Claude-way. “Aw come on, I’m not allowed to welcome you to the one place in the galaxy where neither Earth nor Mars holds any influence?”

Lysithea glanced around. Sure enough, there were no UEN sailors or MN sailors. None of the cameras in the access dock were trained on them. “Honestly all I’ve heard are rumours about this operation you’re running. I kind of needed to see if for myself that Ceres is free.”

Leonie put a hand on her hip and smiled. “Do you believe us now?”

Lysithea shrugged. “It’s not that I didn’t believe you. I almost hoped you were exaggerating. Hope is a pricey emotion.”

Claude clicked his tongue. “Come on, Lysithea, I’ve got something you’ll be interested in.” 

She rolled her eyes but she did walk up to him and took the datapad he was offering. Claude turned and began leading her out of the access dock while Leonie lingered, calling out to Ignatz, the shuttle’s pilot. 

Lysithea scanned the report on the datapad in front of her. It was a record for an incoming comm on the shout channel. She furrowed her brow and quickly set to work decoding the sender. Surprisingly, it was a message from the same UEN Ensign who had sent the initial distress comm from Hygiea. She looked from the datapad to Claude. 

“Ashe Ubert is alive, isn’t he? That ping I picked up on Pallas wasn’t a fluke,” she said. 

Claude shrugged. “It certainly appears like that’s the case, yes. And, he seems to be awfully concerned about the situation on Hygiea.”

Lysithea looked back at the comm and traced the location it was sent from. “This is from Hygiea’s AO.” She shook her head. “This kid either has a hero complex or there’s someone he knows on Hygiea.”

“Careful who you’re calling kid, Lysithea. As far as his service record is concerned, he’s 23 which actually makes him older than you, kid,” Claude teased as they reached the access lift. 

Lysithea aimed a punch at him but Claude dodged out of the way. “I am not a child!” she exclaimed angrily. 

He chuckled. “You are an invaluable member of our group and you are definitely not a child.”

Lysithea studied the comm again. “Give me a few more minutes and I’ll have this decoded.”

Claude nodded and pushed a button on the lift. It began to descend as Lysithea typed a command to run her decrypting software. This Ashe Ubert was either a fairly decent coder, or he knew one because it took a little longer than normal for Lysithea’s software to crack the barriers erected around the comm. 

Text scrawled across the screen once she had succeeded and she passed it to Claude. He read it aloud. 

“To the revolutionaries on Ceres, this message comes to you on behalf of Petra Macneary of Hygiea. Claude, I am thankful for the help you have provided us recently, but I am afraid this message is my way of saying it is not enough. For the last forty or so years, Hygiea has been setting aside one-third of the ships and weapons manufactured on our home for our own use, not Mars’s. Recently this operation has unfortunately drawn Mars’s attention and they have barricaded out home, demanding we surrender our only insurance.” 

Claude paused and Lysithea studied him. “She’s asking you to join a war,” she pointed out. “You don’t have to do that.”

Claude raised an eyebrow. “Don’t I?” He looked back at the comm and continued reading. “Should you feel inclined to come to our aid, Hygiea will mobilize what forces we have in your support. If you bring your revolution to us, we will join you.”

“Lorenz won’t like this idea,” Lysithea pointed out. 

Claude considered. “You know, considering how his father died, I feel he’ll be less opposed than you think he will be.”

“You’re really going to get us into this war?”

“The comm gives me instructions to rendezvous with Ensign Ubert halfway between Ceres and Hygiea. Apparently, they may have a way that we can successfully smuggle our ships into Hygiea’s AO to give us a fighting chance,” Claude continued. 

Lysithea narrowed her eyes at him. “You’ve already decided to help them.”

Claude smiled. “Always insightful, aren’t you.”

“Why are you going to help them?”

The lift doors opened and Claude strode out onto the main level of Ceres station. Lysithea crossed her arms, but she followed him.

“I’m going to help them because if I get rid of Mars’s influence there, then I can inspire confidence in Lorenz and your mother to back me when I finally press Callisto and Io. Plus, that will serve to make Earth nervous. We have Ceres and we basically have Ganymede, but I need a nervous Earth when we take Vesta and Pallas,” Claude explained as they walked. 

Lysithea sighed. His logic was, unfortunately, quite sound. “Do you have a plan?”

“Not yet,” Claude said. “I have someone here who is going to help with that though and I figured you might be interested in meeting him.”

“Someone new?” She studied him. His tone had changed, just slightly to something almost mildly annoyed when he brought up the new person. Claude didn’t bring this person in. Lysithea pressed her lips together and kept following Claude to the base of operations on Ceres. 

Hilda was standing outside as they approached and she beamed at Lysithea. “Hello!” she greeted cheerfully. 

Lysithea looked between Hilda and Claude. “What did you do, Hilda?”

Hilda looked offended for a moment, but Claude just gave her a small smug smile which confirmed Lysithea’s suspicions. Lysithea stared down the pink-haired girl and waited for the inevitable explanation. 

Hilda huffed. “I met him on Callisto like two years ago so when he contacted me and told me he wanted in with us, I gave him transmission codes.”

Claude held up a hand to cut the conversation short before it could really get started. “Hilda and I have had a chat about the privacy of those frequencies and this risk is one we’re willing to take for this sailor. He was a member of the Emperor’s inner circle and he’s given us some good intel.”

Lysithea narrowed her eyes at Claude. “And why am I interested in meeting this sailor?”

“Because, from what Caspar tells us, he knows someone named Linhardt Hevring,” Hilda said. 

Lysithea immediately pushed past Hilda into the room. A young man was sitting at a table, scrolling through a comm log with a frown on his face. Lysithea marched up to him and put her hands on her hips. 

“Who is Linhardt Hevring?” she demanded, preamble be damned. 

The man startled and looked up at her. Whatever answer was on his lips died as he just stared at her. Lysithea stepped back, unnerved, as she watched his eyes take in her whitish hair. 

“You take gravity sickness meds,” he blurted. 

Lysithea stared at him. “How the hell do you know that?”

“Your hair,” he said, gesturing to it. “I’ve only ever met one person with hair like that.”

She was immediately not offended anymore and she was suddenly incredibly curious. “You’ve met someone with hair like mine?”

He nodded. “You have probably all seen her too, but you just didn’t have enough information to put it all together. The  _ Emperor _ takes the meds. According to Linhardt, the chemicals in them cause bleaching of hair and eye colour pigments.”

Lysithea was floored. “The Martian Emperor suffers from gravity sickness?”

The sailor, Caspar, blinked. “Yeah. Linhardt has been working directly to try and create a treatment for her for like 4 years now.”

* * *

**VICTORIA, MARS**

It was late by the time that someone knocked on the door to her quarters. Dorothea was pulling a brush through her hair and she paused when she heard the knock, wondering if she had imagined it. There was nothing for a moment so she nearly went back to her routine, but a voice called out to her.

“Dorothea, can we talk?”

She placed her brush down and walked to her door, opening it. She leaned her hip against the doorframe and raised an eyebrow at the man standing just outside her room. 

“Hello, Ferdie, to what do I owe the pleasure this late at night?”

Ferdinand straightened his plain black jacket. “I wanted to talk to you.”

She leaned back, leaving him a gap to walk by her into her chambers. His cheeks flushed, but he stepped past her into her room. Dorothea closed the door behind him and walked back over to her vanity. She sat down and continued right where she had left off with brushing her hair. 

“I’m listening,” she called to him. 

He stood awkwardly in the middle of her room, staring at her as she brushed her long hair. When he noticed that she was using the mirror to watch him back, he squared his shoulders. 

“Hubert lied to me today,” he said. 

Dorothea paused and turned to face him. “That’s hardly the first time that’s happened, isn’t it? Hubert lies to everyone except Edelgard.”

Ferdinand nodded. “It’s not the first time, but it’s one of the first times I’ve actually noticed that he was lying to me.”

She placed the brush down again. He had a point. Hubert was an excellent liar and Ferdinand was far from the most adept at picking up a lie even when it was told to his face. “What did he say?”

“I asked him why he changed my deployment rotation off of Hygiea to stay here on Mars. He said it’s because they have things on Hygiea under control.”

Dorothea bit the inside of her cheeks. As far as she knew, things on Hygiea were far from under control. But, if her direct CO was lying to Ferdinand, he probably had a reason for doing so. She drummed her fingers over her leg and pressed her lips together. Ferdinand noted her hesitation. 

“I know you think he’s probably not telling me for a reason and maybe he is, but it doesn’t account for all of the other strange stuff that he and Edelgard have been doing recently,” Ferdinand continued. 

“Like surveilling Lin?” she asked. 

Ferdinand frowned. “You noticed it too?”

She shrugged. “It’s not particularly subtle. I think even Lin has noticed. But, that’s just because they want to know if Caspar attempts to contact Linhardt.”

Ferdinand pulled his comm out of his pocket. “I found a trace in mine as well. And in Bernadetta’s. And yours.”

Dorothea sighed. “Look, Ferdie, we were all close to Caspar. We don’t know why he left or what he took with him, so Edie and Hubie are on edge about it all.”

“You don’t have to lie to me as well, Dorothea.”

She blinked. “I’m not lying to you.”

His shoulders relaxed a little. “Wouldn’t have been the first time, that’s all.”

Dorothea stood up and walked over to him. She pressed her hand to the front of his jacket over his heart and held his gaze as she stood in his personal space. “Ferdie, we’ve been through all this before. I handled that poorly back then, but you had something I needed.”

He gently reached up and removed her hand, plucking it from his chest. “You’re a good liar, Dorothea, so you’ll have to forgive me for having a bit of distrust toward the way you treat me sometimes. We didn’t have the most welcoming introduction.”

She gave him a small, playful smile. “What? You don’t go around bragging to people that you were seduced by the Black Widow?” Ferdinand rolled his eyes in a rare show of annoyance. She killed her smile and tapped him on the cheek lightly. “Things will settle down. It’s just a bit tense around here right now.”

“Why didn’t you tell Hubert that the Earthen diplomat figured you out?” he asked and Dorothea blinked. 

“You’ve watched the footage? Why?” 

“Because you put in a request for them to have comm access. That got forwarded to me and I wanted some background,” Ferdinand explained. 

Dorothea winced. “Right. I forgot that you have the authority for that now.” She stepped out of Ferdinand’s space and walked towards her wardrobe. She flipped through a couple of dresses and jackets in her closet. “I didn’t tell him because I don’t want him to pull me,” she explained after a minute, pulling out a deep red dress. 

Without turning to face him, she stripped off her black shirt. She stepped out of her loose shorts too and smiled to herself when she heard Ferdinand choke quietly behind her. She pulled the red dress down over her hips and smoothed it out. She turned back to face him and noted that he had turned a satisfactory shade of red. 

“Did you approve my request?” she asked. 

He nodded, looking away from her. “I did.”

“Good. Let’s go then,” she said brightly, striding towards her door. 

Ferdinand stared at her, standing in the centre of her room still. “What?”

She opened the door and looked back at him. “That’s why you’re here right? You have something you need me to ask them about and you want to trade it for the comm.”

He laughed faintly and trailed after her. “I forgot how well you can read me sometimes.”

She reached out and tapped her finger against his nose. “You make it too easy, Ferdie.”

They walked side-by-side through the central building towards the suite where Edelgard had ordered the Earthen diplomat and his UEMC friend imprisoned. Dorothea didn’t pry at first, hoping he would offer her something else to go on, but when it seemed like Ferdinand was content to walk in silence, she slowed to a stop and pulled on his arm to stop him beside her. 

“Are you going to tell me what’s up or am I walking into this blind?”

Ferdinand scanned the hallway around them. She knew what he was looking for: the ever-present, always-watching cameras that filled Victoria’s Imperial Palace. She touched the side of his face and directed it back to her. 

“Ferdie, tell me.”

“My father. He was being suspiciously well-behaved in Concordia, so I dug into his comm records. He’s been sending dozens of private comms to Selene. He gets replies too.”

Dorothea blinked in surprise. “Selene? The Earthen moon?” Her lips flattened. “That’s why you want to talk to the Earthens.”

He nodded curtly. “Satisfied?”

She nodded and started walking again, forcing him to jog a few steps to fall back in step with her. It wasn’t far to the suite where the Earthens were. Dorothea waved away the two guards outside and one of them walked away immediately, but the other hesitated, looking between Dorothea and Ferdinand. 

“You are relieved of your post, Soldier,” Ferdinand said coolly. 

The guard bristled, but bowed stiffly to Ferdinand, recognizing that he was outranked. Dorothea shrugged and scanned her palm on the access port, causing the door to slide open. The room inside was dark and she had a fleeting feeling of guilt for disturbing what couldn’t have been a rare night of sleep for the Earthens. 

Her guilt didn’t last long because as soon as she stepped into the room, an arm closed around her neck and she was forcibly twisted so that she was facing Ferdinand as a body-shield for her attacker. By the slender and muscled arm around her neck and the iron grip that held her own arms down, Dorothea could guess that it was the Marine holding her. 

“I don’t think you’ll find you’re that lucky twice, Marine,” Ferdinand said coolly. He had drawn his weapon and was aiming it Dorothea, or more specifically, at the woman grappling Dorothea in place. 

“I’d take my chances,” the woman replied. “Four guards in the hallway, two of which you just sent for a long walk and a looping camera feed that we can trick easily enough.”

Dorothea struggled in her grip. “Right, because that’s the only thing you have to worry about,” she gasped out, struggling to breathe with the woman’s arm over her throat. 

“He won’t shoot you,” the Marine said. “Just like I know he doesn’t want to shoot me.”

“Where’s your boyfriend?” Dorothea hissed back at her. 

The Marine turned to her right just slightly so that Dorothea was still shielding her from Ferdinand, but enough that Dorothea could see the Earthen diplomat watching her from safety in the ensuite bathroom with a neutral expression and his arms folded. He did not appear like he was under any particular inclination to help her diffuse the situation despite their previous “connection”. 

“This doesn’t have to get ugly,” Ferdinand said coolly. “We came here to bring you a comm. That’s what you asked for, isn’t it?”

Dorothea watched surprise flicker onto the face of the diplomat, Sylvain. The Marine’s arms loosened a tiny bit as well and Dorothea took her opportunity, using her height to her advantage as she reached upwards, breaking her arms free before managing to duck and twist around the Marine so that she slid behind the woman further into the room, putting the blonde between her and Ferdinand. 

Dorothea held her hands up so that they could see she was unarmed. “I brought you the comm. I said that I would. Now, Ferdie, put the gun down, and let’s have a conversation like the adults that we are where no one needs to be strangled or shot.”

* * *

**NEW YORK CITY, EARTH**

Annette’s hands shook as she watched the video comm on the datapad. When the transmission ended, she looked up at Felix. “This is real?”

Felix’s lips were pressed together. “My father says that everything Dimitri said there is true. All the stuff about him and the late king. Besides, Mars would have no reason to try and fake a comm like this. They benefit from Dimitri being dead, not alive.”

Annette placed the datapad on the table next to Felix’s cot. “Did he reply?”

“Yes,” Felix said. “Told him about the fact that we’re at war, everyone thinks he died, and that as it stands, we have no idea what Mars is capable of doing.”

“Did he mention anything about the fact that Mars might not have been the ones to shoot at the Fhirdiad?” 

“I don’t think so. We don’t know who he was with, so I don’t think that my father wanted to drop that one on him yet,” Felix continued. He held out a hand and Annette passed him the datapad back. 

“Your father knows you showed me this?” 

A part of Annette was terrified of Felix’s father. He was the sitting admiral on the UEK Security Council. Rodrigue had been nice enough when they had spoken to him about the suit footage, but Annette still felt wildly out of her depth. 

“He was the one who suggested that I do since the whole Cornelia bit was actually your idea,” Felix reminded. 

Annette bit her lip. “Okay,” she mumbled. She dropped her gaze to her lap and fidgeted. 

“Hey,” Felix said, his voice much softer, “you’re a part of this. You’re not going to get in trouble for any of this.”

She laughed nervously. “I’m literally spying on my boss and you’re trying to tell me I won’t get in trouble?”

“My father said he’ll handle Cornelia for now. We can just focus on the other things, like,” he gestured to the datapad, “the fact that apparently Dimitri is alive.”

Annette forced a weak smile and straightened up. “And getting your legs going again. I think it’s time for us to walk for a bit.”

Felix huffed, but he didn’t argue with her. She stood from the chair and held out her arms to him. Felix’s hands closed on her forearms as he leaned some of his weight on her as he pushed onto his feet. One of his knees buckled and Annette instinctually leaned closer to catch more of his weight and support him. He managed to catch his balance and they straightened up together and Annette immediately blushed from how close they were. 

She leaned away and pulled on his elbows, coaxing him into stepping. He followed her lead, walking slowly and awkwardly forward across the room. After about six steps, Annette felt confident enough to smile brightly at him. 

“You’re doing much better today!”

Felix’s ears were bright red, but the corner of his lips twitched. “Yeah,” he mumbled. 

“Do you want to try and make it to the main atrium today? I think you could.”

He stared at her, but before he could reply, his comm chimed in his pocket. He shifted his weight carefully, ensuring that he didn’t fall or put too much weight on Annette as he pulled the comm out of his pocket. Annette watched as the comm screen flickered on and a video transmission played. As soon as it began, the blood drained out of Felix’s face and he practically buckled against her. 

Annette lunged forward and caught him around the waist, slowly half-dragging and half-lifting him back so that he was sitting on the foot of the cot, but Felix was still staring at the comm on his screen. She furrowed her brow and stole a glance at the screen just as the redheaded man on the screen blinked away with the end of the message. 

“Felix?” she questioned. 

Felix looked like he had seen a ghost. “They’re alive. They’re alive and on Mars and they sent me a comm.”

“Who’s they?” Annette asked patiently. 

“Sylvain and Ingrid.”

She stared. “Your friends who were on that diplomatic mission? The one whose comm was destroyed when the Emperor took them hostage?”

Felix nodded, still staring at the blank screen of his comm. “They’re alive. Ingrid got shot, but she’s mostly better now. They’re alive and they asked me to tell their families that they’re still alive.”

Annette smiled. “That’s good news, isn’t it?”

Felix’s expression twisted a bit. “It is and it isn’t. I don’t know why they were allowed to send me a comm in the first place. Maybe it was in exchange for something else, maybe it was just for insurance sake so that Earth doesn’t bomb Victoria, or maybe this is all fake.”

She touched his wrist. “I don’t think it is. Be positive about this, yeah?”

His lips twitched. “Okay,” he assented. 

Annette tugged on his arms, pulling him back to standing. “Now,” she said, “let’s try to make it to the atrium.”

Felix stumbled a bit again, but he managed to catch himself. Since she’d met him, Annette had seen Felix’s recovery nearly from start to finish. He was walking much more steadily now, but he still leaned on her a bit as they maneuvered out of the medical bay into the main part of the UEK headquarters. She knew he was frustrated with his progress, but she did her best to encourage him and not to mention little things that she noticed, instead just humming gently and offering him something to hold onto when he needed it. 

A few people gave them sideways glances as they walked through the lobby and Felix gritted his teeth in reply. He had an arm around Annette’s shoulder and she had one looped around his waist as they slowly walked. Most of the glances were harmless, curious looks, but it was undeniable that Felix had become a hot gossip topic since his return to Earth, much to his displeasure. 

They walked around a pillar in the atrium and Annette caught sight of Rodrigue standing in the lobby, speaking with another uniformed soldier. She pinched Felix’s side and nodded towards his father. 

“Should we tell your father about your friends?” 

“Yeah,” he said, slowly guiding them towards his father. 

They had almost reached Rodrigue when he spotted them approaching and smiled. He turned back to the man he had been speaking with before and excused himself, closing the remaining distance towards Felix and Annette and himself. 

“Hello, Miss Dominic, Felix,” Rodrigue greeted politely. 

“Hello, Admiral,” Annette replied with a smile. 

Rodrigue glanced around the atrium for a second. “It’s good to see you out of medical, Felix,” he said to his son. 

Felix’s expression was flat and almost suspicious, but he did nod. “I have something to tell you.” He reached for the comm in his pocket and Annette was momentarily distracted by a blip of red light that darted across Felix’s chest. 

At first, she didn’t think anything of it, but then it appeared again, wiggling over the left side of Felix’s chest. Rodrigue apparently put the pieces together faster than Annette did as he reached out and shoved Felix firmly by the shoulders. 

“Down!” he yelled. 

Felix crumpled and his weight dragged Annette down with him. Felix rolled as they hit the ground, pulling Annette underneath him so that they were nose to nose. Annette’s breath caught as she stared into his fiery amber eyes. Before anything else could happen, there was a loud shattering noise as two of the large HQ windows exploded into a rain of glass as gunfire peppered the area around them. 

Annette thought she might have screamed, but Felix stayed firmly atop her, caging his arms around her head as he tried to cover her fully. Her hands curled into his shirt as they stayed down for a terrible moment. Finally, even though her ears were ringing loudly, the gunfire stopped. 

Felix rolled off of her immediately and Annette sat up. She felt glass slice into her palms as she did, but she didn’t care. Felix let out a choked noise and she immediately realized what was wrong.

Admiral Rodrigue Fraldarius lay on the floor of the atrium a few feet away in a slowly growing pool of blood. 

Felix crawled towards his father through the glass and pulled his father up into his lap. Annette stood carefully, ignoring the blood on her hands, and she picked her way over to them, her heart pounding with fear. 

Felix’s father had gripped Felix’s hand tightly by the time that Annette knelt next to the father and son. She could see three swelling red wounds on the Admiral’s torso and she inhaled sharply. 

“Felix,” Rodrigue said faintly. “Help Dimitri.”

Felix’s expression crumpled as he clutched at his father. “Not you too,” he said hoarsely, sounding more panicked and in pain than Annette had ever heard him sound.

“I love you,” Rodrigue said. “I love you, my son.” He coughed and his body seized momentarily. The man settled after a second and reached a hand up to touch Felix’s face. “Don’t trust Cornelia,” he whispered before his hand slid off of his son’s face, leaving a red streak in its place. 

“No,” Felix said, his voice sounding young and broken and entirely too similar to a child’s. It was the voice of a son who was confused and hurting and scared and about to lose his father forever. 

Annette immediately leaned forward and pulled Felix into a hug. His face pressed into the junction of her neck and shoulder and he cracked, heaving out shaking breaths. The neck of her shirt quickly became damp with tears and she twisted her bloody fingers into Felix’s hair, holding him and trying to offer what comfort that she could. Her own eyes burned and she couldn’t tear them off of Felix’s father’s now unmoving body.

Annette’s knees stung from the glass littering the ground and her hand hurt, but she kept her arms tightly wound around Felix, holding him as he shook against her with the force of his sobs. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...it's a three houses story. I really hope no one was expecting me _not_ to kill off Rodrigue...


	11. Eleven - Hide and Shoot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A line is drawn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, I've figured out a somewhat regular schedule for this fic... I'm going to try and stick to weekly Sunday updates for as long as I can, subject, of course, to my real life schedule. 
> 
> To my enablers in the Sylvgrid Discord, as always, this one's for you ;)

Eleven - Hide and Shoot

* * *

**GANYMEDE AO, OUTER COLONIES**

Mercedes was in the small galley of their ship, fiddling with one of the machines next to the small refrigerator that was probably supposed to be a coffee maker when the doors hissed open. She glanced over her shoulder and spotted Dedue who had paused halfway into the room, looking suddenly sheepish. 

She dropped back onto her heels and smiled at him. “You don’t have to leave,” she encouraged. “The ship isn’t exactly big enough for all of us to avoid each other forever.”

Dedue smiled faintly. “Yes,” he agreed. “I’ve certainly been on bigger vessels in my lifetime.” 

He stepped the rest of the way into the galley and walked over to the small table in one corner. He was moving to sit down at it when he stopped and stared past Mercedes. She turned her head, following his gaze and found him looking at the pocketed wall panel that was beside the machine she had been fiddling with. 

“I’m not sure what this is,” Mercedes said, gesturing to the panel filled with holes. “It looks like there should be some sheet or guard that fits over it, but there isn’t one on this ship.”

Dedue walked up next to her so that their arms were brushing. He reached out and touched the lining of one of the holes. A small, wistful smile drifted across his face. “They’re green panels,” he explained. 

Mercedes blinked. “Green panels?”

“You plant a small air-efficient plant in each of the cutouts and they help ships with air recycling. I’ve never seen one in person.”

Mercedes leaned forward, touching the cutout next to the one Dedue was touching. “That’s fascinating. Do they actually work very well?”

Dedue laughed, a deep, rumbling noise in his chest. “No,” he conceded. “They’re mostly there for decoration, but the better the plants you choose for the panels are, the more likely they to actually be helpful in recycling the air.”  
  
“Are they not standard-issue on UEN ships? It seems like they might be a nice reminder of the greenery back home,” Mercedes pointed out. 

Dedue’s smile dropped a bit and he lowered his hand back to his side. “I have never seen one in person before. I know they are on some UEN ships, but I never had the exposure to a typical UEN ship. There were none on the Fhirdiad, anyway.”

Mercedes bit her lip. Dedue and Ashe had finally explained to her the full truth about the Fhirdiad. They had caught a brief blip of incoming missiles entirely too late to do anything about the whole ship, so they had ejected the Earthen Prince in a Razorback shuttle and ordered vacation of the ship. The Marine team had apparently suited up in their power armour with the intention of trying to use their own RPGs to throw off the heat tracking of the missiles. Ashe had been ordered by his CO to evacuate and take Dedue in the small shuttle that they had been picked up in near Pallas. 

Dedue had also told Mercedes a bit about his relationship with the UEK Prince, Dimitri. Apparently, after Dimitri’s parents were killed in the Eros Massacre, Dedue’s neighbourhood had been accused of harbouring leftover terrorist cells that had been behind the attacks. Many of the people he knew had been killed or arrested, but the young prince had protected him on a whim. From then on, Dedue served Dimitri and the two were very close friends. 

Mercedes had noticed the sad glint that appeared in his green eyes whenever he was thinking about his friend who had still not been confirmed alive or dead. It was a fair assumption, Ashe had pointed out, that based on the capabilities of a Razorback shuttle, if no one had reported salvaging his craft, it was likely that he hadn’t survived the blast. 

“Do you want to go back to Earth?” she asked suddenly. 

Dedue glanced at her, confusion replacing the sadness in his expression. “Back to Earth?”

She leaned against the counter and shrugged. “You spent so much of your life there. I can imagine that open space in Ganymede’s AO isn’t exactly the way you had imagined the rest of your career.”

Dedue studied her face. “I do wish to go back to Earth,” he admitted. “Though, probably for the wrong reasons. I can’t help but think that perhaps there is news there we haven’t heard out here or that they might have the capabilities to do searches from there for His Highness that haven’t already been conducted.”

Mercedes hummed in agreement. She picked at a thread on the cuff of the jumpsuit she was wearing and then tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. “I spent most of my life on Pallas,” she confessed, “and being out here has certainly been strange, but at the same time it feels like I’m really doing something.”

“You aren’t nervous about meeting with the Ceres rebels?” Dedue asked. 

She shook her head. “Honestly, I have no reason to be. The propaganda that spread on Pallas was peaceful. Ceres was claimed without a battle. And, if the rumours are true, apparently this Claude von Riegan has a very in-depth spy network. Perhaps he’s heard some news that we haven’t.”

Before either of them could say anything else, both of their comms chimed in unison. Dedue pulled out the comm that Mercedes had procured for him back on Pallas and pulled up the message from Ashe. 

“Ashe says we’ve just been hailed by the Derdriu. Apparently they’re opening their dock bay for us to enter. Ashe says we should get strapped in.”

Mercedes nodded. She held out a hand to Dedue and he stared at it for a moment before hesitantly taking it. She smiled warmly and pulled him out of the galley towards the central bay of the ship. Ashe was at the controls, preparing the ship to dock with the Derdriu so that they could convene with the people they had sent their message to. 

Mercedes squeezed Dedue’s hand once before she moved to get strapped in. Dedue sat across from her on the other side of the bay and she methodically pulled the restraints over her head and settled against the headrest. She tapped the lock code into the remote on her chair’s arm. 

“Alright, brace for connection. We’re moving with a high enough g that this might be a little rough,” Ashe called to both of them. 

Mercedes watched the monitor in front of her as their little ship spun under Ashe’s control. There was a hissing noise as the thrusters on the ship enabled and then the ship’s external views of Jupiter and its largest moon were swiftly replaced with the metal plating of the inside of a larger ship’s docking bay. 

There was a grinding bump and Ashe cursed under his breath, but then the ship’s computer beeped affirmingly, confirming they had landed safely. The restraints unbuckled and Mercedes pulled them off of her shoulders. She stood up and watched Ashe punch a few more commands before he unhooked himself as well. 

“The ship has just confirmed that the docking bay is now safely pressurized,” Dedue said, checking one last message on the computer before he stood up. 

Mercedes smoothed out her top and smiled at the two Earthen men. “Let’s go meet some rebels, shall we?”

Dedue exhaled shortly in what was almost a laugh and Mercedes felt herself smile as she led the way to the released hatch at the base of the ship. Dedue dropped out first, landing on the ground in the landing bay and then reaching up to help Mercedes. She let her hands grip his shoulders as he held her waist and pulled her down. She stepped away from him quickly, letting him help Ashe down as well. 

Mercedes turned away from their small ship and saw a trio of people walking towards them. Leading them was Claude von Riegan, the young governor who was responsible for the liberation of Ceres. He was accompanied by a young woman with pink hair who Mercedes figured was probably Hilda Goneril, the governor of Ganymede’s sister, and a tall blonde man that she didn’t recognize. 

“Someone told me that you all were either crazy or had some kind of unstoppable hero complex,” Claude called out as a greeting. 

Mercedes clasped her hands together. “Maybe we just have bleeding hearts,” she replied. 

Claude laughed. “Charming. Welcome onboard the Derdriu, the flagship of our new navy. I’m Claude and this is Hilda and Raphael.” 

Ashe nodded and stepped forward, holding his hand out for Claude to shake. Claude shook it and gave Ashe, Dedue, and Mercedes another appraising look. Ashe ignored it and squared his shoulders. 

“Have you considered the message I forwarded you?” he asked. 

Claude smirked. “We have.” 

He turned to Hilda and she passed him a datapad. Claude tapped something and brought up a projection above the screen of the space around a blip labelled Hygiea. He motioned for them to come closer and the three of them did, tentatively. Mercedes studied the projection. It seemed to be a tracking map of all the ships in Hygiea’s AO. 

“We’re going to help take Hygiea,” Hilda said. She pointed to one of the brighter blips on the tracking map. “This is the MN Nuvelle. It’s the Martian flagship in the area. It’ll be our key takedown point, but we don’t have the scanner spoofing tech to get enough ships close enough to it.”

Claude looked past them to their small craft. “I was hoping you might be able to replicate the work you did on your ship to appear as Martian crafts for as long as possible.”

Mercedes was still watching the tracking map. She had determined it wasn’t live as occasionally the blips reset back to their starting positions. There was one light though, a blue dot at the very edge of the map, that appeared for only a second before disappearing entirely. 

“What is that one?” she asked, gesturing to it. 

Claude clicked his tongue. “Good catch. That is an unregistered ship that sent out a transmission on a bouncer plot. The comm bounced on just enough places that I couldn’t get its final location, but I did manage to just catch their location for a minute before they went dark again.”

Mercedes frowned. “An unregistered ship sending a comm like that? That’s odd, isn’t it?”

“Very,” Claude agreed. “Fortunately, we’ve got our best analyst tackling it. We should be able to ping the ship again soon.”

Hilda cleared her throat. “Shall we continue discussing Hygiea?”

* * *

**VICTORIA, MARS**

“Are you going to stand there and watch me work, or are you going to say something?” Linhardt called dryly, not even looking away from the slide he was staring at. 

Edelgard laughed. “Perceptive as always.”

“Your hair is easy enough to spot,” he replied calmly.

Edelgard touched a lock of her ash-white hair and sighed. “I guess it is, isn’t it?”

Linhardt finally placed the slide down and turned to face her. “How may I be of service this afternoon?”

“Hubert told me you put in a request for relocation,” she said. 

Linhardt sighed. “And here I was hoping that it could just be approved and we could all move on with our lives.”

“I can’t send you to Deimos,” Edelgard said firmly. 

Linhardt frowned, but he didn’t look surprised. “I know,” he admitted. “But it was worth a try.”

She pressed her lips together and studied him. Linhardt had always been strange to her, but he loved his work and if she kept him busy, he was usually happy enough to stick around without complaint. He had been on edge since Caspar had let, which, she supposed, was entirely her fault for increasing surveillance on him. 

“Is someone bothering you?” she asked. She glanced around the lab. It was empty besides for them and Hubert who stood outside waiting for them to finish. 

“No,” Linhardt said. “But, I don’t enjoy sharing the space with your uncle’s staff. They seem entirely too eager to work with blood and other,” he paused, wrinkling his nose, “samples. Why is he suddenly so eager to be back in Victoria? Doesn’t he usually spend most of his time in Concordia?”

Edelgard sat down on one of the lab stools and rubbed her temples. “Arundel is the reason we’re in this war,” she said bluntly. 

Linhardt glanced back at her, looking a bit more curious. “And I’m assuming you’re not talking about the Earthen diplomat and Marine who are being held in the eastern wing.” 

She pulled a comm out of her pocket and placed it on the table in front of her. “There are forty-two transponder codes on here for cloaked missiles. The missiles are orbiting Mars as we speak. I have launch control of them myself, but I know that Arundel does as well and just won’t admit it to me.”

“He’s your uncle, isn’t he?” Linhardt asked. “What reason would he have to hold onto launch control after giving them to you? He was one of your largest backers during your ascension, too.” 

“Keep the codes, Linhardt,” she said quietly and slid the comm towards him. “This war is lost without those missiles, one way or another.”

“I’m not a general,” he pointed out. “I don’t have a history of military service or particularly notable devotion to the Martian throne.”

“But you’re a good person. You think with your head not your heart and you don’t want to watch people die,” Edelgard replied. She stood up and brushed her hands off on her pants. She smiled tightly at him. “That’s why.”

With that, she turned and exited the lab. Hubert immediately stepped to her side as they strolled through the hallways in the research building. They were close enough to the Imperial Palace that they could take the interconnecting tunnels instead of a craft, but he had insisted on accompanying her. 

“Four more ships went down near Titan just now,” Hubert said. 

Edelgard bit her lip. A battle had broken out near one of Saturn’s moons a few hours ago. So far, the UEN fleet was doing a fairly good job of destroying her fleet. She had lost 12 ships and almost two thousand Martians and had only managed to destroy five Earthen ships. 

“Any notable?”

“Another ice hauler,” Hubert reported grimly.

Edelgard scowled. “They’re firing on civilian vessels, why? We clearly transmitted our flight logs for Titan’s AO. They should know by the vessel tag which ships are navy and which aren’t. Are the shots intentional?”

Hubert nodded. “It looks like it. Both of the civilian vessels were headed from the research station on Titan to Callisto.”

She curled her hands into fists and increased her pace. Hubert matched her easily, but he didn’t say anything, just waiting for her to come to a decision herself. “Are they trying to cripple Callisto?”

Hubert laughed shortly. “That so-called Alliance out of Ceres has a better grip on Callisto than Earth does. If they were trying to hit Callisto, they’d use Ganymede. Their reserve fleets there are well-equipped.”

She sighed. “Then what is their angle in destroying civilian crafts?”

Before Hubert could reply, his comm chimed. He frowned and pulled it out, holding it up so that Edelgard could also see the message scrolling across the screen. She stopped walking as she read the message and then grabbed the comm, reading it again in disbelief. 

Her own comm chimed and she ignored it. “They destroyed Enceladus’s research station?” she exclaimed in disbelief. “That’s a neutral bodied station!” She scowled fiercely. “There are hundreds of researchers there who are under the protection of the Phoebe Act. This is more than just firing accidentally on a few civilian ships that flew around a battlefield. This is deliberate!”

She pressed her hand against her mouth and began pacing the width of the hallway as Hubert tapped out a few messages on his comm. Her heart was pounding and her stomach was turning in the way that it did when she hadn’t had an injection in a few days, but she had just had one that morning so it confirmed to her that it was just her anger, not her gravity sickness acting up. 

“We’re on a 106-minute delay to Titan and Enceladus,” Hubert informed her. 

Edelgard frowned. “Run the software. What’s the recommended retaliation point? I refuse to let them get away with this.”

Hubert pulled something up, letting it scan on his comm for a moment. He looked surprised when he looked back at her. “Your Majesty, this seems like a harsh move,” he tried to preface, but Edelgard ignored him and took the comm out of his hand. 

She stared at the suggested course of action. “Vesta,” she said. “It’s a major colony in the Asteroid Belt. Why retaliate against Vesta?”

“A show of absolute strength, I suppose,” Hubert said, though he was frowning. 

Edelgard inhaled shakily. “This seems excessive.”

“I agree.”

“But,” she fidgeted, “they attacked an innocent station near Saturn. Ganymede could easily mobilize to crush both Callisto and Io. This gives us insurance that they’ll think twice about targeting our civilian centres.” She sighed. “I hate this.”

Hubert rested a hand on her shoulder. It wasn’t condescending or rude, but it did make her tense. “Lady Edelgard, if we did retaliate against Vesta, it does send a clear message. We will kill several hundred thousand Earthen colonists, but we will not be striking at Earth directly. Plus,” he frowned, looking displeased, “this kind of action can be used to sway your uncle to give us total control over the missiles. He loses leverage over us if we do this, but there will be no backing down from this kind of move.”

Edelgard bit her lip. “It’ll prove that we are in this war for Mars.” She looked up at Hubert and steeled her nerves. “Authorize the strike against Vesta. We’ll use the uncloaked warheads so that they can see the target lock and begin an evacuation. Get some gunships patrolling the area to defend the shuttle crafts.” Her fingernails dug into her palms. “Destroy the colony. That way Earth can’t have it and neither can this Alliance get the wrong idea.”

* * *

**SPACESHIP SEIROS, THE ASTEROID BELT**

“How are you so good at this?” Dimitri asked as he slid his piece forward, taking one of her bishops. 

Byleth smiled and moved her rook, capturing his pawn in return. Dimitri blinked and she leaned forward, batting her eyes innocently. “I have been playing against an AI my entire life. That probably has something to do with it.”

Dimitri chuckled. “I had a friend back home who was ridiculously good at chess. It was like he could see twenty moves ahead of where he actually was and he could always predict what his opponent would do.” He moved his knight.

“Sounds like he would be an actual challenge to play against,” she replied teasingly. 

Before he could retort, a red light flashed above them. Byleth shot to her feet, looking around the galley. The light continued to pulse, reinforcing the fact that it wasn’t a false alarm or anything. 

“Sothis! What’s going on?” Byleth yelled out.

“ _Martian gunships nearby. They’ve just changed route from Hygiea to head towards Vesta,_ ” the AI replied. “ _You should see this._ ”

Byleth nodded. She glanced at Dimitri. “Come on,” she urged and then she took off in a run for the command deck. 

She reached the deck before Dimitri did, but not by much thanks to his longer legs. She immediately headed to one of the monitors on the side of the room and scanned the display on the screen. Byleth swore and turned to face the central console. 

“Can you cloak us, Sothis?”

“ _They’re not scanning,_ ” Sothis replied. “ _It looks like they’re patrolling an escort route by the movements of the ships_.”

“What are they escorting?” Dimitri asked, leaning forward as he studied the hologram. 

Byleth pointed out the marked cluster of gunships. “That’s a formation there, but there’s no freighter or vessel in the escort position.”

“ _Oh no_ ,” Sothis said suddenly. 

“What?” Byleth demanded. 

“ _There’s no ship in the escort position that we can pick up on scanners,_ ” Sothis replied. 

Byleth blinked, confused for a moment. “A stealth ship?” she demanded after a second. “How is that even possible?” 

“ _I_ _can send a probe to get us visual on it. Right now I’ve just got a faint image_.”

“No,” Dimitri said, shaking his head. His blue eyes were wide. “The only other time I have successfully seen what might have been stealth tech, my ship got blown up. Can they see us?”

“ _Not at the moment, but if they scan, they’ll see us._ ”

Byleth ran a hand through her hair. “We can’t just kill the drive because then we’ll be sitting ducks. We can’t change course because then they’ll catch our signal.” She looked back at the hologram. “You said they were heading to Vesta? That’s an Earthen colony. Why is Mars going there?”

“ _I think we’re about to find out! The gunships just trained their missiles on Vesta!_ ”

Byleth froze. “They’re going to blow it up. Oh my god, they’re going to destroy it.”

She shoved away from the table and grabbed Dimitri’s arm. She shoved him towards one of the chairs on the deck and scrambled towards the pilot’s controls herself. She hurriedly pulled the straps down over her head and clipped herself into place. 

“Sothis, vent the lower decks. Concentrate pressure up top and give me the best burn you’ve got without changing our drive signature,” Byleth ordered. She stole a glance at Dimitri and saw that he was still staring at the console. “Your Highness, for your own god damn safety, fasten the fucking restraints.” 

Dimitri startled at her voice, but he did manage to get himself strapped into the seat. Byleth took a deep breath and pushed her hands on the flight controls. The ship whirred under her touch, beginning a low spin. The thrusters on the bottom half of the ship were propelling the bottom up so that they could be flipped to face the other direction. 

“Give me a launch update, Sothis,” Byleth called. 

“ _T_ _hat centre ship just came up on radar. It has target-lock on Vesta now._ ”

Byleth took a deep breath. “Give me the nearest rock. I need some kind of cover for us to stick to when that thing gets blown up.”

“ _Forty-five right and sixty up_ ,” Sothis instructed. 

Byleth pulled up and right on the controls and the Seiros lurched upwards, shooting behind the nearest small Asteroid right as light exploded across all of the camera monitors. There was a blistering shaking noise and the whole ship jolted abruptly. Byleth slammed against the back of her chair, but she gritted her teeth and kept a lock on the only thing remotely covering them from the absolutely massive wave of destruction and debris that was about to head their way. 

“ _Debris incoming!_ ” Sothis’s voice echoed around the deck right as the ship jolted abruptly. “ _Broken seal lower decks and some damage to the port side._ ”

Byleth tugged the controls down. “Give me drive! I’m flipping her. We’re going to have to burn straight down or we’re going to be space dust.” 

The ship’s engine roared and Byleth slammed the controls up and then down quickly, throwing the Seiros into a spinning turn before slamming the thrusters and shooting them out at brutally high velocity under at least several g’s worth of acceleration. She gritted her teeth as her vision tunnelled momentarily and then she released the control, slowing the spin and killing the drop. 

She gasped and sagged against the restraints of her chair. “Sothis? Are we clear?”

“ _Debris field cleared. Nice flying there,_ ” the AI complimented. 

Byleth heaved out a breath. She ripped her restraints off and looked towards Dimitri. He was slouched in his chair and she cursed. She had been fine through the high-g maneuver because she was both used to them and had been expecting it. She stumbled across the deck to him and knelt next to him. She touched his cheek gently. 

“Dimitri?”

He startled against her touch and his head snapped up, almost headbutting her in the nose. She immediately leaned away and laughed breathily. He blinked at her a few times, the blue of his eyes bright and alert. 

“Sorry about that,” she said lightly. “I forgot you’re no space expert.” He flushed pink and she stood up, stepping away from him. “We’ve cleared the debris for the most part,” she said.

Dimitri unstrapped himself and moved to stand next to her at the console. He stared at the chaotic debris field mapped in front of them. “Vesta,” he murmured, his brow knitting. “Why would Mars destroy an entire colony? They probably killed two hundred thousand people.”

Byleth touched his hand reassuringly, but any words of comfort that she had got stuck in her throat. She was about to force something out when a light on the console blinked and drew her attention. She took a sharp breath in and pulled up the alert. 

“Oh no, no, no!”

“Byleth?” Dimitri asked, looking worried. 

She covered her face with her hands. “I used a flip and burn to get us out of there, but I definitely caught the attention of a Martian gunship.”

“ _According to the scan, they’ve only locked us with no drive,_ ” Sothis explained. “ _We might be able to play dead._ ”

Byleth shook her head. “Even if they only saw us blind, they’ll board. After that display? There’s no way they’d just leave an unregistered ship floating here.”

“Unless they thought all of its systems had been blown out by the explosion,” Dimitri said suddenly. “They’d leave it if it was a ghost ship blasted out of a stall spot by the debris. How well can we play dead?”

Byleth bit her lip. “If we suit up, we can vent the ship and find somewhere to hide in case they want to board us. But,” she glanced at the console, “Sothis, if I leave you online, there will be energy running to the command deck. If there’s energy here then they’ll know we’ve been active recently.”

“ _Then I’ll power down_ ,” Sothis suggested simply. 

Byleth shook her head. “No! If you power down, I could lose your programming. If I have to cut all power to the deck, there may not be a way for me to bring all the systems back online.” Her voice dropped. “There might not be a way for me to bring you back.”

“ _We have to take that risk, Byleth. Otherwise, those Martians will shoot you both and turn the ship into scrap. Playing dead is our only option here_.”

Dimitri touched her elbow. “What can I do?”

She inhaled deeply. “Just suit up.” She pointed to one of the vac suits in a secure cabinet near the door of command. She smoothed her hands along the console. “I’ll find a way to get you back,” Byleth said. 

“ _I trust you,_ ” Sothis replied. “ _Take care of our ship, Byleth_.”

“Always.” She rapped her knuckle three times against the display. “Alright, bridge, prepare to power down. Prepare for a full vent of the ship. We’re going dark and we’re going dark hard.”

She walked over to the other cabinet and pulled out her own vac suit. She pulled it on awkwardly, looking around the command deck as various systems wiped and then shut down, creating the illusion of the ship being an abandoned vessel, long lost to the chaos of the Asteroid Belt. She pulled the zipper up to her chin and pulled the helmet on and found herself biting her lip to hold back tears. The venting of her suit kicked in and she breathed through the suit’s apparatus. 

She beckoned for Dimitri to follow her off the deck and paused at the entrance of the ship. “Sothis, initiate zero grav, kill the drive and power off.” She hesitated. “Thank you.”

Dimitri tugged lightly on her arm. “Come on,” he urged. 

Byleth nodded and led him down the hall to a point that was close to her quarters. She knelt and pried up a floor panel. The crawlspace under the floor was definitely not big, but it was well-hidden enough and the metal resonance would be enough to mostly hide their presence from a life-form scan. She gestured for Dimitri to enter it and he did so without hesitation, shifting so that he was sitting and then lying down. 

Byleth climbed in after him, awkwardly crouching next to him as she pulled the floor panel back into place. She bent backwards, sealing it over the crack above them and then shifted so that she was lying practically on top of Dimitri. She twisted her arm, bringing it up so that they could both watch the small screen on her suit. Gravity vanished on the ship and they were shot into zero-g, floating awkwardly in the crawl space.

She had the ship’s access pulled up and they watched as something blipped on the screen as a landing pod attached to the damaged hull of the Seiros. Byleth breathed slowly and shallowly as she tried to listen for footsteps. At first, all she could hear was the breathing apparatuses on hers and Dimitri’s vac suits, but then she heard the sound of grav boots stomping on the floor. 

She turned and pressed her hands against the bottom of the floor panel as they floated together. Dimitri pulled an arm around her waist to keep them anchored together and she could feel his chest rising and falling as he breathed. She closed her eyes and tried not to think about the fact that she may have just shut Sothis down forever. 

The footsteps got closer until they were right on the floor directly above them. Byleth slowed her breathing until it was slow and shallow. Dimitri copied her and she counted two sets of boots above her. 

“This thing is dead right through,” one of the voices said. “Must have been abandoned and then knocked around by the blast from Vesta.”

“Didn’t we get a drive signature flash from it?” the second voice said. 

“Could have just been a glitch from that fancy escort ship,” the first voice countered. 

“Whatever. Let’s just leave this thing and get out of here. I know Mick has some stories to share from Victoria. Apparently he took a rotation guarding the ambassador and that Marine girl,” the second person said. 

Dimitri’s arm tightened on her waist and Byleth frowned. Ambassador? Marine?

“Everyone knows we blew up Earth’s prince. Why’d we have to take a Councilman’s son and that UEMC officer as well?” the first voice laughed. “You’re right though. Let’s get out of here.”

The footsteps thudded away and Byleth twisted so that her helmet visor knocked against Dimitri’s. He looked shell-shocked. 

“Sylvain, Ingrid,” he breathed. 

“Dimitri?”

“I don’t think Mars started the war by shooting at me. I think they started it by capturing my friends.”

She watched as his eyes shut and pain crossed his face. Byleth bumped her visor against his, drawing his attention. She channelled the shred of optimism she had left after potentially shutting down her only friend permanently. 

“Hey, we’re going to figure this out. We got your message to Earth. We’re going to get you home.”

It was the first time that she had dared make the promise to him, but with everything that was happening, having just seen an entire Outer Colony vaporized and having learnt that apparently two of his friends were being held on Mars, Byleth couldn’t stand her own inaction anymore. 

Earth needed their prince home. 


	12. Twelve - Connection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ingrid asks for help. Felix learns something new. Ashe traces a path.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello~ hopefully I'll be able to keep the Sunday Space Day train rolling a bit longer because I have a couple more weeks of summer to work with.
> 
> Also, and update on that system map, [Bayleaf6399](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bayleaf6399/pseuds/Bayleaf6399), has updated the map to be current to chapter 11!
> 
>   
> 
> 
> It's also on my Tumblr **[here](https://nicolewrites.tumblr.com/post/625385312981516288/bayleaf-6399-galaxy-map-update-for-antumbra-by)**

Twelve - Connection

* * *

**VICTORIA, MARS**

For the first few days after Ingrid’s bullet wound was mostly healed, the bed situation had been awkward. Still, Sylvain had done his absolute best to make it as not-weird as possible. Even so, Ingrid felt strange lying on the mattress next to one of her oldest friends. 

It didn’t help that Sylvain had a bad habit of turning towards her in the night and tucking his arm around her waist. He would reel her in until his breath fell gently against her neck, rustling her hair. Ingrid was pretty sure he was asleep when he did it, but Sylvain was a brilliant actor; she had no way of knowing if he actually was asleep. 

As much as she would have liked to claim otherwise, waking up next to him made her feel reassured and safer than she would have felt without him. She always woke up before him and managed to extract herself from Sylvain’s unintentional cuddling before he woke up. 

Today should have been no different, but when she woke up, there was no arm around her waist. Ingrid lay still for a minute and frowned. She propped herself up on her elbows and turned her head towards Sylvain. He was lying stiffly on the bed and his brow was damp with sweat. Ingrid exhaled shakily and shifted so that she was leaning over him. 

“Sylvain?”

He didn’t stir at her words and she bit her lip. She rested the back of her hand against his forehead and was shocked to find his skin burning against her hand. Worried, she moved her hand to his neck and pressed into it, searching for a pulse. It took her a second because her hands were shaking, but she eventually felt his pulse beneath her fingers. It was slower than she was expecting and it stuttered. Ingrid swallowed. That wasn’t what his pulse was supposed to feel like. 

“Sylvain,” she tried again, shaking his shoulder. 

His breathing hitched momentarily, almost like he was in pain and Ingrid swore under her breath. She placed her hand on the side of his face and gently pried his eyelid up. He startled against her touch before she could see anything, his body hunching and rolling towards her as a shiver passed through him. 

“Ingrid,” he mumbled, his voice sounding dry. 

She stared for a moment, feeling a terrible mix of fear and uncertainty. “Sylvain, what’s wrong?” she asked him. 

“Stomach,” he muttered. “Hurts. Head too.”

The pieces clicked in her mind and she ran her fingers through his hair trying to be comforting, as her mind whirred. She was damn lucky he was even conscious and if she was right, there was a good chance that he might not be for long. 

“Where’s that comm from Dorothea, Sylvain?”

“Table,” he groaned, his face scrunching as his body curled more. 

She quickly leapt up from the bed and ran to the table. Sure enough, the modified comm was sitting on the table where they had left it after they sent their message to Felix on Earth. Ingrid was surprised that the Martians had let them keep the comm even after she had tried to strangle the female spy. They had even left a line on the comm that would let them contact the spy if they needed anything else. 

Ingrid opened a voice channel and held the comm up to her mouth, stealing another glance at Sylvain who still looked like he was in incredible pain. 

“I hope you weren’t kidding the other day when you said that you were trying to keep us alive. Because someone here wants us dead and I don’t have an anti-tox kit. So if you want us alive, get me something so that I can save Sylvain’s fucking life.”

She dropped the comm unceremoniously back to the table after sending the message. She jogged back to the bed and crawled on her hands and knees towards Sylvain who had turned his face into the pillow. 

“Sylvain, look at me,” she instructed. 

She tugged on his arm, turning him back towards her and bit her lip when she saw that the skin of his lips was almost bluish tinged. She cupped his face in her hands and leaned down close to him. His eyelashes fluttered, but his eyes stayed closed. 

“Sylvain,” she repeated, more urgently. “Breathe,” she begged. 

On her command, he took in a shuddering breath and the blue of his lips lessened. She relaxed a bit but noticed that he hadn’t started truly breathing. She pressed a palm against his stomach and pushed down, coaxing him to exhale and force an inhale. She tried to keep her hands from shaking, but she was _terrified_. 

She was lucky she had woken up when she did and not two hours later. She could only hope that the spy came through and brought her what she needed to save his life. Someone had obviously succeeded in poisoning Sylvain and she could only hope and pray it didn’t have to do with the woman who said she was trying to keep them alive. 

Sylvain took in a deep, rattling breath and his eyes flickered open. She frowned and stroked her thumb across his cheek. His lips parted as he kept breathing unsteadily. She tapped her fingers against his stomach individually and his eyes trailed down, searching. 

“Focus on breathing,” she instructed, trying to keep her voice as steady as she could. 

“I’m sorry,” he said suddenly, his voice rasping. 

She shook her head. “This is not your fault.”

He shifted his hand onto his stomach, grabbing at her fingers. “Not this,” he grunted. “I’m sorry about Glenn.”

Ingrid stared at him. Glenn had been killed years ago. She had no idea why he was trying to apologize to her about her dead fiancé while literally struggling to take air into his lungs. 

“Sylvain, no. Worry about this now,” she said. 

He shook his head. “You blame me.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because I wasn’t with him. No partner so Glenn takes Duscur mission. My fault,” he said. He broke off coughing at the end. 

Ingrid frowned and leaned down gently propping him up so that his chest was slightly elevated. His cough died off, but he curled his hand tightly around the hand that had pressed against his stomach. 

“My fault,” he repeated. 

Ingrid didn’t get a chance to reply before the door to their suite hissed open and the spy strode in. She was accompanied by a man dressed in all black who looked tired, but he was carrying a black bag with a big white stripe on it that Ingrid recognized. The woman noticed Ingrid and Sylvain on the bed and strode towards them. 

“What happened?” she demanded, staring at Sylvain in surprise. 

“How should I know?” Ingrid hissed back. “You’re the ones trying to kill him.”

The woman frowned. “I didn’t do this. I wouldn’t do this.” 

Ingrid studied her. She had seen the woman’s face more than a dozen times since they’d arrived on Mars, but besides the fib where she dressed up as a simple sailor, she had not lied to them. Even her name, Dorothea, had been offered to them honestly. Ingrid had no reason to doubt that she was telling the truth.

She pressed her lips together. She glanced at the man next to her holding the anti-tox kit. “Let me help him,” she begged. “Please. I’ll tell you whatever you want, just let me help him.”

Dorothea hesitated. “I think you’ll find whatever training you have in this sort of situation won’t help you with what’s wrong with him.”

Ingrid scowled. “You have the damn kit! Let me help him.”

Sylvain groaned weakly and Ingrid brushed her fingers along his forehead. He was even hotter now than he was when she had woken up. The man at Dorothea’s side tapped the woman’s arm and the Martians exchanged a glance. 

“Please,” Dorothea said, looking straight at Ingrid. “Trust me. Linhardt will help him, but you have to let him do it.”

Ingrid wanted to throw the skinny Martian man across the room and take the anti-tox kit from him by force, but the pained look on Dorothea’s face made her hesitate. She knew how to administer an anti-tox kit. She had training on it, yet the grimness of the situation and the thought that she might mess it up had her drawing her hands away from Sylvain and moving back, letting the Martian who Dorothea had called Linhardt move closer to him.

Ingrid watched as Linhardt opened the anti-tox kit and pulled out a neutralizer. He put it into a needle and then took a pair of scissors and cut open Sylvain’s shirt, revealing his chest. Ingrid tensed. Normally a neutralizer was given via injection into a vein into the victim’s arm. Horrified, she watched as the Martian traced a finger on Sylvain’s chest, before leaning down, needle in hand. 

Ingrid jolted and tried to move forward, but Dorothea grabbed her arm. “Don’t,” she said firmly. 

Ingrid struggled, but Dorothea had bought Linhardt just enough time to press the needle into Sylvain’s chest. “What are you doing?” Ingrid demanded. 

Linhardt depressed the syringe before withdrawing the needle. Almost immediately, Sylvain’s breathing evened out and Ingrid stared in shock. Linhardt pressed a cotton swab to the puncture point on Sylvain’s chest and looked back at Ingrid. He looked remarkably calm. 

“Cortezine poisoning most grievously affects the heart. If I had injected him in the arm, he would have had a heart attack before the antidote reached his heart.”

“Cortezine?” Ingrid repeated. “That’s a restricted substance.” She looked at Dorothea and pulled her arm out of the other woman’s grip. She frowned. “Are you going to tell me why you just tried to kill a man you said you were interested in keeping alive?”

Dorothea was frowning. “I didn’t give Sylvain the Cortezine, however, I have a guess who might have.”

* * *

**NEW YORK CITY, EARTH**

Felix pulled the comm out of his dress uniform jacket and stared at it for a moment. He took a deep breath and held it up, initiating the transmission on the tightbeam that Dimitri had sent along to his father with the first message. 

“Dimitri,” he began, “get your ass back to Earth. My father is dead and if I had to guess, Cornelia’s about to place a puppet of her own in his place. Mars blew Vesta to dust in retaliation for the destruction of a station on Enceladus. You have to get back here and stop this fucking war.” He hesitated for a second, considering adding a bit about Sylvain and Ingrid, but he decided against it, killing the transmission and sending it. 

“Felix?”

His head snapped up and he saw Annette standing a few feet away, wearing a black lace dress. The tension in his shoulders relaxed a little and he sighed. 

“Everyone’s waiting for me?”

“No, actually,” she said, stepping forward to sit next to him. “I just wanted to see how you were doing.”

Felix looked at her. Her eyes were soft around the edges and she looked genuine. She looked far more honest than every other person who had come up to him in the last few days to give him their regrets. Felix didn’t want anymore well-wishes and sympathetic smiles, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell Annette to go away. She was just trying to be nice. 

“I’m fine,” Felix replied shortly, dropping his eyes back to his lap. 

She sighed. “You’re forgetting I’ve sat on this exact bench and made these exact excuses.”

He laughed shortly. “God, why do they insist on having the damn thing in this building? Not like it actually makes the families feel good or anything.”

Annette looked out at the atrium around them. Felix followed her gaze to the newly installed windows now made from bulletproof glass. It had only taken them a day to get new windows installed and to clear the last of the blood off of the tiled floor. One more day to invite a bunch of high ranking generals, and then it was time for his father’s funeral, held in the ceremonial hall in the UEK Headquarters in New York. 

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “I remember your father’s funeral too.”

Annette smiled faintly. “First time I was ever in New York, actually.”

Felix glanced at her. “Probably not your favourite city now, is it?”

“It has ups and downs.”

“Sergeant Fraldarius,” a familiar voice cut in. 

Felix pushed himself to his feet shakily and narrowed his eyes at Cornelia who had approached them. “Secretary-General,” he greeted stiffly. 

Annette rose to her feet at the sight of her boss as well and smiled politely. Cornelia looked between the two of them curiously, her red-painted lips curling into an almost nasty smile.

“I wasn’t aware that you knew my assistant, Sergeant,” Cornelia said almost mockingly. 

Felix kept his expression neutral. “Miss Dominic and I are acquainted,” he agreed. “Is there something I can do for you, ma’am?”

“Oh, I was just hoping to share a few words with you before the ceremony begins. Your father and I were rather close, as you must know,” she said sweetly. 

Annette nodded quickly. “I’ll see you later, Sergeant.” She reverted to his title and Felix bit back the instinct that wanted to correct her. It didn’t matter what she called him in private, but there were certain expectations that picked up in formal settings. 

Felix folded his arms and stared at Cornelia. “What did you want to talk to me about?” he said coolly. 

She smiled and Felix could practically see the venom dripping from her polite expression. “I’m so sorry for your loss, Sergeant. Your father was a valued member of the Security Council.”

“You hated my father. You actively opposed each other for your entire tenure. He was appointed by Lambert so you couldn’t do anything about him when he was alive, so I highly doubt you’re grieving him too much,” Felix replied sharply. 

After his accusation, her expression changed from feigned politeness to a sharp smugness. “You’re just as smart as he was, aren’t you?” She folded her hands in front of her politely. “I thought you might be interested to know that I was given permission to select our next chief military officer who will replace your father on the Security Council.”

Felix tensed. “My father has been dead for two days.”

“We’re in the middle of a war, Sergeant. I need a military advisor.”

Felix scowled. “Dimitri is the leader of this planet,” he retorted sharply before he could hold his tongue. 

Cornelia’s eyebrow quirked up. “As far as anyone on Earth knows, His Highness perished in the explosion of the UEN Fhirdiad. Do you know something about the incident, Sergeant Fraldarius?”

“No,” he replied darkly. “I already gave my official statement. The prince would have died with the Fhirdiad.”

Cornelia clicked her tongue. “And it’s such a shame, isn’t it? He had so much potential.”

“Do you need anything else from me, ma’am?” he asked coldly. 

“Just this,” she said, pulling something out of her bag. 

She held it out to him and Felix quickly snatched the dog tags. His father’s tags weren’t the only things hanging on the metal chain: there was half of another set as well that had belonged to Felix’s brother Glenn, and a small gold locket that had belonged to his mother. Felix shoved the chain and all its charms into his pocket. 

“How did you get that?” he snapped. 

Cornelia smiled placatingly. “Your father left it in my office the other day after we had a conversation about some of his recent queries. You should have it.”

Felix felt cold. Cornelia’s words had been innocent enough, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew a threat when he heard one. Cornelia knew something about the investigation that his father had been pushing into her as well as the true events around the attacking of the Fhirdiad. The fact that she felt threatened enough to press him here, at his father’s funeral, about backing down, told Felix that their investigation was onto something.

It also told him enough about his father’s death that he needed to be more careful. 

“Thank you,” he said dismissively. He looked over at the entrance to the ceremonial hall. “I believe we should be making our way inside, shouldn’t we?” He waited for her to challenge him, but she just smiled blithely.

“Of course. I am sorry, again, for your loss, Sergeant. We thank you for your family’s long history of dedicated service,” Cornelia said. She tapped a finger against her cheek. “Oh, I almost forgot to give you the name of your father’s successor. Admiral Myson Irebrand will be replacing Admiral Fraldarius as the chief military officer of the UEK Security Council.”

With that, she brushed past him and headed into the entrance hall, leaving Felix seething just outside of it. Felix wasn’t alone for long as Annette quickly reappeared from the other side of the pillar she had almost hidden behind while Felix was talking with Cornelia. She looked worried. 

“Who’s Admiral Irebrand?” she asked him. 

Felix scowled. “Another puppet for Cornelia on the Security Council. She created his career. He’ll vote with her no matter what.”

Annette pursed her lips. “So now she controls two seats. That’s not good for us, is it?”

“No,” Felix agreed darkly. “Charon and Galatea are smart. They’ll vote the way that makes the most sense for our country. Rowe will swing between them, but I imagine he’ll lean to Cornelia’s side for most things since she has a greater influence on him.”

Annette counted on her fingers, three on her left hand and two on her right. She frowned. “Then that leaves Andre Gautier in the middle, doesn’t it? If he sides with General Charon and General Galatea, the council sits at a stand-still since His Highness’s position remains empty.”

Felix frowned. “Andre Gautier is a career politician. You’ve met him,” he added. “You can see why I might be worried about leaving the fate of our damn planet in his hands.”

Annette touched his arm. “His son’s on Mars, isn’t he? Don’t you think that would make some difference?” 

Felix thought about Sylvain and his father. Sylvain had studied politics and diplomacy for the 6 years since Sylvain had been discharged from the Marines on his father’s orders. Even before the forceful discharge, Felix could not recall a conversation between the two Gautier men that hadn’t been horribly charged with double meanings. 

Sylvain hadn’t told Felix everything about what happened after the Miklan incident, but Felix could read it well enough himself. He hadn’t particularly had a model father-son relationship with his father, but their relationship wasn’t toxic like Sylvain and Andre’s was. 

“I don’t know,” he admitted after a moment. He glanced around, watching for any faces that he routinely saw communicating with Cornelia. When he didn’t recognize anyone, he continued, “I think Cornelia had my father shot.”

* * *

**SPACESHIP DERDRIU, OUTER COLONIES**

Ashe wasn’t sure what to make of the Derdriu. It was a repossessed UEN flagship that had been stripped of all its UEK decals. The part of him that had been trained as a sailor and a pilot in the UEN was almost offended at the defacing of what was once a mighty UEN warship, but the part of him that stripped comm units and recoded them to send encrypted transmissions was impressed. 

If he hadn’t been given the ship’s transponder codes when he was piloting his small craft in, he never would have been able to track the ship. It was an impressive feat. Still, it was true that it wouldn’t be much use in taking Hygiea unless they could spoof the signals to appear Martian since as undetectable as it was by radar, it was still a giant metal ship in space that could be physically seen and targeted by the Martian fleet. 

He was currently wandering around one of the outer rings of the ship, admiring the updated technology on the ship like the wall of monitors that were playing a live camera feed of the space outside the ship. He paused and stared out at the stars around him. In all of his years as a sailor, he had only actually been off of Earth a handful of times. 

He’d done a tour on Vesta that was mostly just standard patrols, but it had sparked an interest in piloting for him. From there, once he’d come up for reassignment, he had requested a transfer to a flight-training program. Then, once he’d become a pilot he’d flown second-point on the UEN Fhirdiad which had not ended well. Then he’d flown a dingy little ship from Pallas to Hygiea and then Hygiea to the ship he was currently on. 

Ashe pulled out his comm and opened a blank transmission. “Hi guys,” he began softly, “I don’t know if I’m really going to send any of these yet, but I wanted to say something just in case. I can’t decide if sending this would make anything better or not. As far as you know, I died when the Fhirdiad went down, so this could be a joke. But, I’m still here, and I’ve got something new to fight for, but I’m not sure if that makes it worse since I can tell you that I love you, but I can’t come home yet.”

He frowned and looked back at the monitors. “Space is beautiful. Finley, I know you’d love it and, Jude, we were supposed to be up here together someday.” He bit his lip. “I’m sorry I can’t be back home with you guys.”

He saved the transmission to his comm and tapped it against his leg, sighing under his breath. He wanted so desperately to let his family know he was still alive, but he had no way of knowing if the comm would even make it safely and securely back to them. He also didn’t know what their reactions would be. Finley probably would have been happy to hear from him, but Jude was in the Navy now and seemed to trust a lot less easily than he had when they were kids. 

“Are you going to send it?” someone asked. 

Ashe turned, startled, and found a young man wearing what looked like a Martian Navy uniform sans the jacket. “Who are you?” he asked, shoving his comm into his pocket. 

The young man flinched. “Ah, sorry, I shouldn’t have snuck up on you.” He held out a hand. “I’m Caspar. You’re Ashe, right? The one who brought the transmission from Hygiea?”

Ashe shook Caspar’s hand and was surprised by his tight grip, something that didn’t really match the bright smile on the man’s face. “Yeah, I’m Ashe,” he agreed. 

“I was just wondering if you were going to send that to Earth. I didn’t think that there was any way you’d be able to,” Caspar continued, bringing back his original point. 

Ashe nodded. “Well, there are no ways that I can do it through the UEK channels, but,” he hesitated, but seeing the eagerness on the other man’s expression, he didn’t see a reason to conceal the truth, “I created a set of encrypted transmitters for my brother and sisters so that we could chat unregulated when I was deployed.”

Caspar seemed interested. “That’s pretty cool. I’ve never been any good with tech stuff. My friend Linhardt used to kick me out of his lab because I was too loud.”

Ashe smiled. “It just takes practice,” he excused. 

“Nah,” Caspar said, “all that stuff you do with the comms is cool. Without you, we never would have gotten that comm from Hygiea.” Caspar scratched the back of his head. “That’s actually why I was looking for you. I wanted to thank you for sending the comm to Ceres. I wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t done that.”

Ashe blinked. He noticed the tattoo almost immediately then, similar to Mercedes’s except it was on Caspar’s forearm: a larger circle with two smaller dots. “You’re Martian,” he realized. Then he frowned. “Why are you thanking me for inciting a movement to liberate a Martian colony?”

Caspar scratched the back of his head. “I did a rotation there and I met this girl and became friends with her. A couple of years later, we’re still in touch and I met Hilda while on a tour on Callisto. I decided to join Hilda and the others because they’re making a change that I agree with. Next thing I know, you’re bringing Petra’s comms to Claude and we’re making plans to liberate Hygia.”

Ashe processed. “You know Petra?”

“Bingo!” Caspar agreed. “She’s pretty cool, but I hadn’t been able to get a comm to her since the blockade started. So again, thanks for that.”

Ashe nodded. “Yeah, I actually met her when I went to Hygiea.” 

He smiled faintly, recalling the earnestness and the slyness of Petra when they had spoken in the alley. He still felt terrible about leaving her behind, but he understood why she had wanted to stay. It was the best option. Even so, he was exchanging comms with her now when they both could spare a moment. It almost felt like they were becoming real friends, despite the chaos of the situation surrounding them. 

Ashe’s comm chimed before Caspar could say anything else and he pulled it out, sliding his new notification onto his screen. It was from Claude, surprisingly, and it asked him to come to the command deck for something. Ashe dismissed it and looked back at Caspar, who had his hands tucked into his pockets casually. 

“It was nice to meet you, Caspar,” Ashe said politely. 

Caspar nodded and Ashe went on his way, heading for the lift to the command deck. When he arrived on the deck, Claude was standing in front of the central holographic display with Hilda and a white-haired woman that Ashe hadn’t met yet. 

“You made it! Great!” Claude said, waving him over. 

Ashe approached and gave the new woman a curious look. “What did you need?”

“You’re the one who cracked our broadband back on Earth, right?” the white-haired woman asked. 

Ashe nodded. “Mostly accidentally, but yeah, I did.”

Claude pulled up a comm trace on the holo. “Lysithea has been trying to place the destination of this comm. This is the one we picked up just on the edge of Hygiea’s AO. If we’re moving on Hygiea, I want to know where that comm was going. I was hoping you might be able to help with that."

Hilda offered Ashe a datapad and he took it. He pulled up the bouncer plot that the transmission followed and highlighted the major stations it bounced off of. He isolated the larger stations and noticed that it had gone through Titan, one of Saturn’s moons. Ashe quickly pulled up a record of transmissions around Saturn and noticed a cloaked comm that had passed through at about the right time. He swiped on the datapad, sending it to the holographic display. 

“I don’t think I can recover it, but if my guess is right here, then this was its last stop before its intended recipient,” he explained.

Ashe fiddled with the comm, applying a decryptor he had and then he waited for a few seconds while it did its work. When it was done, the recipient showed up on the screen. Ashe stared at it in surprise. 

“Admiral Fraldarius?” Hilda read out. “He’s a high ranking general right?”

Ashe nodded. “He’s the chief military advisor on the UEK Security Council. His son was on the Fhirdiad with us,” he mumbled, his voice dying at the end of the sentence. 

Claude hummed. “Interesting. Someone went through all that work to send a transmission to a UEK Admiral on the Security Council.”

“I still can’t trace the sender,” the white-haired woman, Lysithea, said, sounding frustrated. She studied Ashe’s decrypted comm and gave him an appraising look. “Nice work pinpointing it on Titan.”

Claude waved his hand, dismissing Lysithea’s frustration. “No, that’s okay. I think I have an idea who might have sent it anyway.”


	13. Thirteen - Retaliation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Earth retaliates.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> was this supposed to come out later today? yes. did I post it anyways? also yes.

Thirteen - Retaliation

* * *

**VICTORIA, MARS**

Sylvain had seen Ingrid angry plenty of times in his life. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen her as angry as she was when he came to after being jabbed in the chest by the strange Martian man. He woke up tangled in the sheets of the bed they’d been sharing feeling like he had the world’s worst hangover. 

Ingrid was pacing the length of the room. She alternated between wringing her hands out in front of her and tugging on the end of her long, braided blonde hair. Sylvain shifted in the bed, sliding so that he was sitting up and leaning against the headboard of the bed. He watched her pace and mutter to herself for another minute before he felt bad. 

“Ingrid,” he called to her. 

She immediately stopped and spun to face him. “You’re awake!” She sounded both startled and immensely relieved. 

Sylvain gave her what he could muster of a smile. “Everything hurts like a bitch, but yeah, I guess I’m both alive and awake so that’s a nice bonus.”

Ingrid walked over and sat on the edge of the bed. Her gaze trailed down from his face to his chest and Sylvain belatedly noticed he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Ingrid didn’t seem fazed by his bare chest, but she had fixated on the blossoming bruise over his heart. It was a spindly, star-shaped bruise that hurt like a bitch whenever he moved. 

Sylvain touched it curiously. “That explains the chest pain,” he grumbled. 

“Don’t touch it,” Ingrid said firmly. She frowned. “Do you feel sick or anything?”

Sylvain shook his head. “I’m okay.”

“Do you remember anything from earlier today?”

He thought about it. He remembered being in incredible pain in both his chest and his head, but beyond that, the early morning had been a big blur. He thought he remembered seeing the Martian spy, Dorothea, because Ingrid had called her, but he was also pretty sure he’d been absolutely delusional and nearly dead by the time that someone had jabbed a needle into his chest. 

“What happened?” he asked her. “Everything was fine yesterday so how did it go so wrong so quickly today?”

Ingrid sighed. “Cortezine."

Sylvain stared at her. “The fluid used in reactors?”

“Also a banned, ingestible poison that causes sickness and eventual heart failure,” Ingrid added. 

Sylvain touched the bruise on his chest. “Ah,” he muttered dumbly. “Any idea why our lovely hosts were trying to kill me?”

“Dorothea said this wasn’t her.” Ingrid hesitated like she was feeling torn. “I think I believe her. She did bring Linhardt and the anti-tox kit to help you. If she had been trying to kill you, she wouldn’t have done that.”

“What about that captain that was with her when they gave us the comm? Him?” Sylvain asked. 

Ingrid shook her head. “Dorothea told me she thought it would be from Hubert, the Emperor’s retainer and the head of Martian Intelligence Ops.”

Sylvain considered it. “I suppose if anyone had a reason to, the Emperor’s right-hand man would have one just as much as anyone else here.”

Ingrid turned, pulling her leg up so that she was facing him more fully. She took a deep breath and Sylvain watched the tiniest flicker of guilt cross her expression. He leaned towards her almost unconsciously, raising an eyebrow. 

“This may sound really weird, but Sylvain, I have to know,” Ingrid began. “Why did you leave the Navy?” Her brow furrowed.

Sylvain winced. “I said something earlier, didn’t I? When I was delirious?”

Ingrid frowned at him. “Sylvain.”

He ran his hands through his hair. “I really was hoping I would literally never have to have this conversation with you.”

“What happened?”

Sylvain looked at her and smiled sadly. “Daddy got tired of his prodigal son pissing off to join the army instead of polishing up our name after the Miklan incident,” he said bitterly.

Ingrid stared at him. “Glenn told me you resigned. That you just up and quit on him one day,” she said quietly. She shook her head, looking both sad and mildly horrified. “Sylvain, why did you never tell me that your father was behind that?”

He rubbed his forehead. He knew why he had never told her, but that wasn’t an explanation that he wanted to share with her. How was he supposed to explain that he hadn’t told her his father had forcibly discharged him because he was afraid of his father? How did he explain that with everything that happened with Glenn and the Marines after he left he had felt a sick sense of relief that his father had stepped in?

“Glenn accepted the Duscur deployment because I wasn’t there with him,” Sylvain said quietly. “If I’d been with him, then we would have gone on the Vesta mission and he wouldn’t have been available to go on the Duscur.”

Ingrid stood up and turned her back to him, rubbing her arms like she wasn’t sure what to say. “Did the others know?” she asked quietly. 

Sylvain slid across the bed towards her, wincing at the pain in his chest. “Ingrid.” He reached for her, but she stepped away, turning back to face him. 

“Did they know?” she repeated. “Felix? Dimitri? Did you tell them?”

“I told Felix a few years ago,” Sylvain admitted. “I think Dimitri figured it out on his own since he works with my father. But, I didn’t tell anyone right after. Glenn was my friend, but his death didn’t affect me like it affected all of you.”

He expected her to be angry. Ingrid hated secrets. She had always operated on a blunt, trusting basis. Once you had earned her trust, you were good in her book. But, a secret like this should have made her angry at him. 

Sylvain pressed his palms against the mattress and swung his legs off the edge, sitting on the edge of the bed as he watched her. Ingrid turned back towards him and stepped close to him. Sylvain instinctively parted his knees so that she could step between them and rest her hands on his shoulders. 

She leaned down, kissing his forehead, and then she pulled him into a hug. Sylvain was tense for a moment, unsure how to react, but Ingrid didn’t let go and she didn’t hit him or yell. He finally lifted his arms up and hugged her back around the waist. 

“Glenn’s death is not on you, Sylvain. That’s on the people who attacked the Duscur.”

Sylvain leaned back away from Ingrid, sliding his hands so that he was holding her waist as she stood over him. Every stupid feeling Sylvain had had since he was sixteen years old came rushing back into his mind and he couldn’t stop himself from gently and affectionately stroking the top of her waist with his thumb. Ingrid picked up on the light touch easily and her eyes softened into something curious as she peeked down at where Sylvain was holding her waist. 

The encounter was quickly derailed into something else as the doors on the far side of the suite hissed open and Ingrid jumped back out of his touch. Sylvain turned, staying seated on the edge of the bed and watched as Dorothea burst into the room, the Navy Captain at her side. They both looked deeply concerned. 

“Let’s go,” Dorothea said hurriedly. “We have to get out of here.”

Sylvain stood up, feeling wary. “What’s going on?”

“There’s no time for this conversation,” the captain said sternly.

Ingrid crossed her arms. “You have enough time to tell us what’s going on,” she rebuked. 

Dorothea sighed. “We just received word from Earth that the Security Council passed a motion to retaliate for one of our attacks. They’re going to attack Victoria, so unless you two would like to get turned into space dust, we should leave.” 

She threw two pairs of grav boots forward and raised an eyebrow, daring them to challenge her. Sylvain didn’t hesitate, standing and grabbing a pair of the boots. Ingrid did the same and they pulled them on. Sylvain also nabbed a shirt from the dresser that hadn’t been cut open by the Martian who had given him anti-tox. He pulled it on and waited for Ingrid to take the lead. 

She strode towards the two Martians and Sylvain followed her. The captain turned to leave immediately and Dorothea followed him, leaving the Earthens to follow her. As a group, they hurried through the ornate halls of the Imperial Palace. Sylvain, almost instinctively, reached for Ingrid’s hand and held tight to it as they moved. She didn’t pull away. 

Dorothea and the Martian captain led them down a flight of stairs to a docking bay and hurried them onto a transport. The transport was small, only seating about 10 people, and empty besides for Linhardt, the man who had saved Sylvain’s life, and a tiny purple-haired woman who seemed content to hunch up in the corner of the transport. 

The captain made his way to the controls and launched the transport. The craft jolted and Sylvain braced himself on the wall as they ejected from the docking bay on Victoria began to race across the red sands of Mars that covered the spaces between the domes. 

Sylvain looked at Dorothea who was watching on a monitor with dismay and disdain written across her expression. “Where are we going?”

“Thebe,” she replied shortly. 

Thebe was the third largest of Mars’s domes and if he recalled his diplomatic training correctly, it housed the summer palace for the Martian Emperor, meaning it was a logical next place. 

Ingrid looked at another of the monitors. “Earth wouldn’t just blow up an entire dome on Mars. That could kill millions of people.”

Whatever reply Ingrid would have gotten was drowned out by an ear-splitting screech and a jolt of the craft that nearly sent them all crashing to the floor. 

On the monitors, Victoria’s dome lit up in a blast of light. 

* * *

**SPACESHIP SEIROS, THE ASTEROID BELT**

Dimitri hadn’t realized how used to the ship’s AI he had been until Sothis had gone quiet. He had been used to the beeping of the ship as Sothis ran scans of the area and the exterior of the ship for damages, but she was offline now, so the only thing he heard was the hum of the drive and the creaking of metal as he walked around the ship. 

After they had escaped from the Martian patrol ship, Dimitri had paced the length of the ship for over an hour, trying to reason with everything he had just learned. Mars had attacked Vesta. They had blown the colony to bits without a shred of regard. The ship carrying the missiles that had destroyed Vesta had been a stealth ship of the same class that could have attacked the Fhirdiad. 

Byleth had shut down Sothis, her longtime companion on the ship so that they could play dead and not get caught. Mars had started the war with Earth by abducting the Ambassador and one of his Marine Guards who also happened to be Dimitri’s good friends, Sylvain and Ingrid, if his hunch was correct. 

After almost two hours, he had finally gotten his thoughts together enough that he didn’t feel like he was drowning and he set out looking for Byleth. She had vanished to do repair work on the ship while he was off fretting and he hadn’t seen her since. They had sealed off the lower decks due to damage sustained in the debris field when Vesta had been attacked and Dimitri knew that as good as Byleth was, those kinds of repairs would have to be taken care of at a station. 

He wandered into the galley while looking at her and the temporary comm that Byleth had wired for him, chimed. Startled, he pulled it out urgently. The only person besides Byleth who would be able to comm him was Admiral Fraldarius using the tightbeam transmission line that he had included on his original message.

He had a new external message and he paused at the galley table, sliding the transmission off the comm to the holoscreen in the galley. Dimitri almost dropped the comm when he recognized the face of the person who had sent him the message. 

Felix looked grim and serious on the display, but Dimitri was just surprised to see that he was alive. As far as he had known, Felix had died in the explosion that had destroyed the Fhirdiad several weeks ago. Dimitri hurriedly pressed play on Felix’s message. 

“ _Dimitri,_ ” the Felix on the display began, “ _get your ass back to Earth. My father is dead and if I had to guess, Cornelia’s about to place a puppet of her own in his place. Mars blew Vesta to dust in retaliation for the destruction of a station on Enceladus. You have to get back here and stop this fucking war._ ”

Dimitri sat down in one of the galley chairs, lest he fall down. Rodrigue was _dead_? He obviously knew about the attack on Vesta, but he hadn’t realized it was in retaliation for something done by his own government. As far as he knew, Enceladus was a research station and attacking it would violate the Phoebe Act. Still, he was absolutely shaken to learn that Rodrigue, the man who had practically been a second father to him, was dead. 

Felix’s message was short, blunt and not padded with any extra detail. Dimitri wished that Felix was the type to elaborate slightly more or at least enough to include how Rodrigue had died. Had Mars struck on Earth too? Had it been a natural death? He put his head in his hands and leaned forward on the galley table. 

He had to get back to Earth. Byleth had said as much after Vesta had been destroyed, but if Cornelia now had a puppet on the Security Council, and Rodrigue’s level-headed presence was absent, he would be needed back home more urgently than ever. 

First of all, though, he had to find the Seiros’s only other passenger. 

She hadn’t been on the command deck, nor had she been mid-ship, so he found a lift and chose his destination as the engineering deck. The lift descended and Dimitri idly tapped his comm against his leg. He wasn’t even sure what he was going to say if he found Byleth. What did you say to the woman who had shut off her only friend to save your life? How did he even begin to explain the truth of the Security Council to her? 

He had explained a bit about his personal mistrust of Cornelia, but that was nothing compared to practically accusing her of warmongering for her own political purposes. It wasn’t going to be an easy conversation, that was for sure. 

The noise on the engineering deck was a lot louder than anywhere else on the ship. It made sense since all the loud machinery that provided the gentle hum of the ship was working at full strength and full volume on this deck. 

Thankfully, it didn’t take long to locate Byleth. He rounded the corner near the lift and saw her sitting on the floor of the ship, wiring her comm into some wires in the wall. He hesitated for a moment, gathering his thoughts before he cleared his throat. 

Byleth’s hand snapped up, wiping at her cheek before she turned towards him and Dimitri realized belatedly that she had been crying. 

“Hi,” he greeted awkwardly. “How’s the ship?”

Byleth shrugged. “A bit of physical damage to the external hull, but nothing that can’t be fixed if we find a safe place to dock. Internal systems and drive are all still functioning, so no real issues there.”

Dimitri took a deep breath. “Any luck with Sothis?”

Byleth’s neutral expression cracked. “No,” she murmured. “I found her programming thread, but she’s so deeply buried in the ship’s code that I’m not sure I can restart her without causing either a major reactor meltdown or randomly venting the entire ship, killing us both, even if we did suit up.”

He frowned. “I’m sorry.” He carefully folded his legs underneath himself and sat next to her on the floor of the ship. 

Byleth looked away from him, focusing back on whatever system she was checking on her comm. Dimitri studied her quietly. 

She looked tired and she had a streak of grease on her left cheek. Her eyebrows were scrunched in concentration and he could practically see the tension in her shoulders. She was different from every other woman he’d known on Earth. She was probably most similar to Ingrid, but there was something fundamentally different about the two women that made him unable to really compare them. 

Byleth tensed suddenly and Dimitri tipped his head, leaning forward to look at what she found on her comm. Her mouth dropped open and she fiddled with something until what looked like a research report scrolled along her screen. 

“Byleth?” he asked. 

“Oh my god,” she breathed. “These reports are from Selene! What are they doing buried in life support system coding?”

Dimitri blinked. “From Selene?”

She angled the screen so that she could see what she had uncovered. They looked vaguely like old UEK patient files from a medical report. Byleth downloaded them to her comm and then dismissed the report quickly. 

“I’ll check them later,” she said. “I have to finish checking our broadcast capabilities.” Her mouth set in a firm line. “We have to get a message back to Earth from you.”

“Do we have the comms to do that? Can we get a broadband signal there from here?”

Byleth studied the new report on her screen and sighed. “As it stands? No. The debris outside took one of my long-range transmitters clean off the outside of the ship. We could probably send a signal to one of the Belt Colonies, but I doubt we’d be able to broadcast as far as Mars, much less Earth.”

Dimitri frowned. “Pallas. Could you get one to Pallas? Of all the Belt Colonies, that would be the best bet of it reaching someone who could forward it to Earth.”  
Byleth considered that and tapped a few things on her comm screen. “Probably,” she admitted. “But, there’s a good chance someone else could hijack it on its way there. It might not even get there if Mars is monitoring transmission lines in this area.” She fiddled with something else and looked back at him. “Actually, considering someone tapped our tightbeam and tried to snag it, there’s a damn good chance it won’t make it to Pallas.”

“Someone tried to snag the tightbeam?”

She nodded. “We were flagged by a ship in Hygiea’s AO, but it’s not a Martian ship, I know what their signature looks like. Whoever flagged us earlier doesn’t use official decrypting software.”

Dimitri sighed. “At this point, it’s a risk we’ll have to take. How soon until we can send the comm?”

Byleth leaned forward, fiddling with two of the wires in the wall. She connected them and jolted backwards at the sparks that were emitted for a brief second. Dimitri winced as well, but then Byleth turned back to him, wearing the first genuine smile he’d seen since they played dead. 

“Any time.”

* * *

**THEBE, MARS**

“Evacuations of districts 7 through 12 were completed successfully,” Hubert reported, reading off of a datapad. 

Edelgard nodded. “Beyond that?”

“No official reports yet, but preliminary updates predict that we evacuated almost everyone up to district 14,” Hubert explained. 

She dropped her head into her hands, leaning forward on her desk. “Seven districts. Seven districts of people didn’t get out of the dome.” 

Rage and grief swirled through her. She had taken a risk in blowing up Vesta. She knew it was a potentially monumental strike that could have had disastrous consequences. She had just been so sure that the UEK’s Security Council wouldn’t be stupid enough to launch a direct counterattack at Mars. 

When she had received the report that nine UEN cruisers were training their weapons on Victoria she had almost felt like she was dreaming. If it hadn’t been for the fact that it was a report from Hubert, she may not have even believed the news. She didn’t want to think about how many people would have died if she hadn’t believed it and issued an immediate and high priority evacuation order to the entire dome. 

Victoria was Mars’s largest dome and had the largest population of Martians in its 21 residential and work districts. She had ordered that Concordia and Thebe, Mars’s second and third largest domes open their docks to as many ships as they could hold and that Romulus and Remus, the next largest domes, be prepared to take on any overflow. 

Of course, thanks to the transmission delay, they hadn’t had the evacuation time that they should have had and not everything had gone to plan. Edelgard herself had evacuated to Thebe, to the Imperial Summer Palace, with many members of her inner circle. She and Hubert had holed up in her study almost as soon as they had arrived to try and coordinate the evacuation efforts and get updated information on how successful they had been. 

She had had the glorious opportunity to watch a live feed as Earth’s nuclear warheads had detonated the dome that had been her home for almost her whole life. Seeing the buckling structures of Victoria, structures that were the result of hundreds of years of terraforming and construction had made Edelgard so angry she had snapped the pen she had been holding in half. 

Hubert had wordlessly replaced her pen, but she had seen the set of his jaw that betrayed his own anger. Victoria had been Hubert’s home even longer than Edelgard’s and though he claimed no emotional attachment to it, it was clear that he was as angered by the UEK’s retaliatory strike as she was. 

“Do we have an update from Earth? Media, intelligence, anything?”

Hubert handed her the datapad. “I just received the update on the UEK’s Security Council’s motion.”

Edelgard took the datapad and looked at it. It was an intelligence report from Earth that detailed the way that the members of the Security Council had voted. The motion had been proposed by Secretary-General Arnim, something that wasn’t surprising to Edelgard. The motion had passed in a 4 to 2 vote which _was_ surprising to Edelgard. She tapped on the vote to bring up the split and as she studied the list of names, she lowered the datapad and stared at Hubert. 

“This is accurate?” she asked. 

Hubert nodded. “As accurate as it can be on short notice.”

Edelgard frowned. “Where’s Fraldarius? Isn’t he the chief military advisor? Why didn’t he vote?”

“He’s dead, apparently.”

Edelgard nearly dropped the datapad. “The UEK’s chief military advisor is dead and we didn’t hear about it?”

“It’s a recent development. Admiral Myson Irebrand was recently appointed. I ran a background check on him and I think you’ll find his previous exploits interesting. He was a chief Admiral stationed at the Selene research station.”

She placed the datapad down and massaged her temples. “Selene, why does everything keep coming back to Selene?” She sighed angrily. “And this,” she gestured to the list of affirming votes again, “this was not supposed to happen. We took steps to ensure that precisely this wouldn’t happen.”

“No interaction between our planets is perfect,” Hubert pointed out. 

“You think they thought the ambassador and Marine were dead?”

“No,” Hubert said. “I believe that we’re simply dealing with a man who knows more than he is supposed to.”

Edelgard sighed. “Dorothea evacuated them, didn’t she? Did they come to Thebe or go to Concordia?”

“They’re here in Thebe.”

Edelgard stood up. “Take me to see them. I have a few questions for Earth’s charming ambassador.”

Hubert took the datapad back and led her out of the office. They walked in silence through the palace hallways towards the guest chambers. Edelgard’s mind was racing. She had been planning her grand display of taking the UEK Ambassador for several months before it had actually happened. Hubert had been the only person who had really known, but then she had let the other members of her inner circle in after her ascension as Emperor.

Andre Gautier had announced his plans to have his son replace him as the ambassador just shortly after her ascension. Edelgard stopped walking and grabbed Hubert’s arm. 

“Sweep my office again. Check for bugs because I think we have a leak.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Arundel,” he guessed. “You think he’s listening in on you."

She frowned. “My reasons to believe so just seem to keep on increasing.” 

He nodded. “I’ll do it myself after this.”

“Thank you.”

They resumed their trek to the guest wing and they quickly found the guest room they were looking for. There were four MN sailors stationed outside and Ferdinand and Dorothea were having a tense argument right outside the door. Ferdinand tried to touch Dorothea’s arm and she jerked away from him, frowning. 

Ferdinand noticed Edelgard’s appearance first and he immediately straightened and offered her a bow. She nodded to him and ignored the bows from the other soldiers. Dorothea didn’t bow, but she did raise her chin and stare Edelgard in the face, her argument with Ferdinand dropping away. 

“Edie, whatever you’re thinking, don’t do it,” Dorothea said firmly. 

“Move out of my way, Dorothea,” Edelgard replied calmly. 

She strode toward the closed door and despite Dorothea’s words, the spy did not stand in her way as Edelgard pushed past her into the room. As soon as she opened the door, she gained the attention of both Earthens. She didn’t particularly care what the Marine thought of her. She was more interested in the Ambassador. 

Sylvain Gautier’s eyes were narrowed, but his posture was relaxed and neutral. He was infuriatingly hard to read and Edelgard’s temper snapped. 

She walked forward, grabbing the front of his shirt and pushing him back until he was pressed against the windows on the far side of the room. She was much shorter than him, but she was strong and he didn’t seem particularly interested in struggling against her. 

The Marine stepped forward, but Ferdinand inserted himself between Edelgard and the Marine to hold her back. Edelgard scowled at the Gautier son. 

“What game are you and your father playing?”

He raised an eyebrow, still annoyingly calm. “In case you’re not aware, Your Majesty, I haven’t exchanged words with my father since I was on Earth. I have no idea what you’re talking about, but based on the way that you seem interested in opening this window and hurling me out, I can make a guess to say it has to do with Victoria.”

He was smart, she had to give him that. His reputation had painted him as a playboy without a smart bone in his body. She had to admit that whatever reputation he had built was an excellent shield for him. He wielded his intelligence as a weapon in a very similar manner to the way his father did during diplomatic meetings in the past. Still, she had the opportunity for the last word. 

“The UEK Security Council directly approved the strike on Victoria. Two votes against and four in favour,” she explained, her voice cold. 

Sylvain’s expression finally cracked with the tiniest bit of confusion as he tried to reconcile the voting pattern of the Security Council. 

“Votes in favour,” she continued, “Secretary-General Arnim, Captain Rowe, and Admiral Irebrand.” She pressed Sylvain harder against the window and let her fingernails dig into his skin through his shirt. “Ambassador Andre Gautier.”


	14. Fourteen - We Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Annette breaks the news. Dorothea plays her trump card. Claude makes the call.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this is where it really starts to get interesting...

Fourteen - We Know

* * *

**NEW YORK CITY, EARTH**

“Here you are, Sergeant,” the coroner said, holding out the report. 

Felix took the report and Annette smiled politely at the coroner. “Thank you for doing this so quickly.”

The coroner nodded and smiled. “Admiral Fraldarius was a good man. I owed him a lot. I’m happy to do this for his son.”

Felix looked between the report and the man who had handed it to me. “And Cornelia won’t know that we got this copy?”

The coroner shook his head. “No, I promise. This can stay between the three of us.”

Annette nodded and touched Felix’s arm. “Let’s go.”

She led the way out of the room and they strolled side-by-side through the hallway. Their walking pace was still impeded by Felix’s physical capabilities. The day after his father’s funeral, Felix had received a set of automated braces that assisted him in walking that had been paid for by his father. 

He had tried to get rid of them immediately, but Annette had somehow managed to talk Felix into wearing the braces. As a result, he was walking a little bit better, but he was obviously still in pain, even with the assistance from the brace so Annette kept their pace slow enough that she knew he would be mostly comfortable. 

They had already decided that they would take the report to Annette’s apartment to look at it since there was a good chance that Cornelia was actively watching Felix’s recovery room and Annette’s office was too close to Cornelia’s own for either of them to be comfortable. Annette led Felix out of the medical complex to the monorail that would lead to her apartment. 

On the train, he looked like he was going to try and stay standing so Annette tugged on his arm and pulled him towards a set of seats. Reluctantly, Felix sat down next to her, but he was completely tense, his eyes flicking over the monorail car as he assessed their situation. 

He bent forward a little so that his breath tickled her ear. “Two rows behind us there are two plain-clothes sailors. The man by the door there is wearing a wire,” he counted. 

Annette blinked but forced herself not to look back at the men behind them. She did steal a glance at the man by the door and, sure enough, she caught a glimpse of a tiny black dot at the collar of his shirt: a microphone.

“They think you’re doing something suspicious, right?” she asked quietly, keeping her voice low. 

“Probably,” he agreed. 

Annette took a deep breath and let out an airy laugh. She tilted her head to the side, leaning into Felix. She cupped one of his hands with both of her own and prayed that he knew what she was doing. Surprisingly, he didn’t flinch away from her. He was still tense, but he didn’t push her away. 

He turned his head so that he was practically speaking to the top of her head. “What are you doing?”

She hummed happily and tilted her face up towards him so that they were just an inch apart. “Giving them a reason for why we’re together,” she whispered. 

Felix’s eyes gleamed and he didn’t complain again for the rest of the train ride. When the train stopped at her station, Annette stood up and pulled Felix to his feet. She linked her arm through his and guided him off the train, walking right past the man wearing a wire. Annette didn’t let go of Felix’s arm until they were out of the monorail station.

She looked up at him a minute later. “Are we good?”

Felix did a quick scan of their surroundings before he nodded. “Clear,” he confirmed. 

Annette uncurled her hand from Felix’s arm and stepped back a touch, leaving space between them. “So Cornelia’s got men following you now?”

Felix sighed. “She knew something about what my father was looking into. I don’t think I eased her suspicions that I knew about the investigation at the funeral.”

Annette pressed her lips together. “Let’s get to my apartment,” she suggested. “Off the street.”

She hadn’t forgotten the fact that the little red light had been targeting Felix originally before his father had been shot. She didn’t know how to bring it up with him. How was she supposed to tell him that he was probably the original target of the shooting that had killed his father? Annette had a pretty clear guess as to why Felix had been targeted and that didn’t make her any more comfortable. 

They walked the rest of the way to her apartment complex in silence. Annette led him to the elevator and they took it up to the fifth floor. Thankfully, her apartment was close to the elevator so they quickly made it inside. Felix immediately beelined for her kitchen table, dropping the coroner’s report onto the table. Annette locked the door behind herself and walked over to the table, sitting next to Felix. 

Felix was already turning the page, a frown on his face. He tapped his middle finger on the page, looking troubled. Annette leaned closer to see what he was looking at. It was the ballistics report on the bullets that had been shot at them. 

“What is it?” she asked. She wasn’t a soldier, she didn’t know anything in particular about ballistics and what would be weird or unusual to see in the report. 

“This ammunition is special-order only,” Felix said. “It’s cast using lightweight lead alloys on Selene. A single bullet can cost up to a thousand dollars.”

Annette blinked. “A thousand dollars for a single bullet? There were dozens of them fired into the building the other day!”

Felix scowled. “That means whoever did this either has incredibly deep pockets or a rooted connection to Selene.”

Annette hesitated at the mention of Earth’s moon. “What kind of a connection to Selene?”

Felix shrugged. “I don’t know. A business sponsorship, a research position, anything that would give a person a friend on Selene who could get dozens of these bullets down to Earth for not-astronomical costs.”

Annette bit her lip. “Do you think it has anything to do with that cabal that was busted on Selene a few years back that was running Selene-crafted goods down to the surface?”

Felix’s head snapped up. “Why do you know about that? It was a closed investigation. Hell, I’m not even supposed to know about that.”

“Wait here,” she instructed. 

She stood up from the table and walked into her bedroom. Sitting on her desk was the large black binder that had been her obsession for several years. She picked it up and hauled it back out into the main part of her apartment. She put it down on the table in front of Felix and waited for him to look at it.

Felix looked between her and the heavy binder suspiciously, but then he opened it. The first few pages were news articles about the failed Venus probe and the political disaster that had happened after it. There was a clipped article that had a statement by Felix’s father explaining the goal of the Venus probe dated before the mission was launched. The report had a list of personnel for the mission, including Annette’s father. 

After that, there were a dozen print-outs of comms and transmission logs that were from her father, exchanged in the few weeks before the Venus probe launched. He mentioned, very briefly, that he had conducted a trip to Selene on the orders of Captain Rowe. Her father had described his work there as classified, but not of any serious importance. 

Next up were the articles surrounding the take-down of a smuggling ring operating between Selene and Earth, moving expensive goods to and from the planet. The articles were vague in the personal details, mentioning that it was a tip given to the UEN by a trusted source that had led to them bringing down the cabal running the smuggling. 

Felix stopped skimming and looked up at her. “What is all of this?”

Annette took a deep breath. “I didn’t just come to New York to take the job as Cornelia’s assistant. I came here to find out what happened to my father.” She leaned forward, tapping the page of the binder he was currently looking at. “My father went to Selene on a classified mission a month before a massive take-down of this cabal occurred. I know him and he told me that he was pushing for a more serious investigation into some things that were happening on Selene.”

Felix cursed under his breath. “And then he was assigned to the Venus probe, a mission which, by design, should have gone off without a hitch and yet it resulted in one of the largest political disasters of recent years when the entire UEK crew was killed.” He scrubbed a palm across his face looking stressed. “You think someone put your father on that mission on purpose.”

Annette nodded. “I do. And if we’re right about there being something funny on Selene that my father was trying to dig into, I would bet a lot of money on that being the same funny business that led to a lot of Selene-built ammunition making its way to Earth just in time to kill your father, the Secretary-General’s biggest opponent.”

* * *

**THEBE, MARS**

“Ferdie!” Dorothea called, jogging down the hall after him. 

His step faltered and he glanced back at her, looking surprised. “Dorothea?”

She grabbed his arm and breathed heavily as she caught her breath. “I need your help.”

He held onto her arm gently and frowned. “With what?”

She raised her chin. “I need to talk to the Earthens again.”

Ferdinand sighed. “Dorothea, they’re on complete lockdown right now. We already went behind Edelgard’s back to let them send that comm to Earth. Can we prove that they weren’t the ones who encouraged the strike on Victoria?” His eyes softened and Dorothea was struck by how exhausted he looked. 

She dropped her hand from his arm. She could find another way to get in to see the Earthens without troubling Ferdinand more than she needed to. He already looked like he was about to collapse from exhaustion. 

“Have you slept at all since the evacuation?” she asked suddenly, flipping the conversation. 

He sighed. “Not really. Have you? Your eyes look tired,” he pointed out. 

Like he didn’t realize he was doing it, Ferdinand lifted a hand to her face, gently touching her cheek with his thumb. Dorothea blinked and leaned away from his touch. They had done this once before and it hadn’t ended well for either of them. She couldn’t afford to do this right now, as much as the deeply romantic part of her wanted to. 

He dropped his hand quickly, his mind catching up with his body and his ears turned red. “I didn’t mean to do that,” he mumbled. 

Dorothea smiled quickly. “It’s okay,” she replied. She stepped back from Ferdinand and squared her shoulders. “I’ll talk to you later.”

He frowned. “Dorothea, wait. Why do you need to see the Earthens?”

She stepped closer to him again and dropped her voice low. “Because I got a reply to the comm we let them send and, Ferdie, this is big.”

He turned her shoulder and started walking down the hallway, tugging her along by her elbow. He lowered his voice to match her. “You got a reply?”

“Yes. They sent the message to a friend of theirs who just happens to be Sergeant Fraldarius, the very same Marine who was recovered from the wreckage of the Fhirdiad,” Dorothea explained as they walked. 

Ferdinand stopped abruptly and she had to yank on his arm to get him to keep moving. There may have been less surveillance in the summer palace than in Victoria, but that didn’t mean there was nobody watching them and Dorothea really would rather have this be a discrete conversation. 

“Apparently,” she continued, “Admiral Fraldarius of the Security Council received a coded tightbeam transmission from someone that nobody was expecting.”

Ferdinand’s brow creased as he mentally ran through a list of the potential people that could have sent the comm. Dorothea gave him a minute to contemplate it, mostly for the suspense factor, before she continued. 

“That’s why I need to see the Earthens. Because this information could end this war.”

Ferdinand sighed, but he did nod. “Alright, I’ll authorize you. Let’s go.”

Dorothea leaned up on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you.”

Ferdinand led them around the corner before he took the left hallway, leading to the guest chambers in the summer palace where the two Earthens were being kept. There were six guards in the hallway, more than there had been before Edelgard had spoken to the pair. 

Dorothea knew that Edelgard suspected Sylvain, the ambassador, as having had something to do with the attacks on Victoria, but by the utter surprise he had displayed upon finding out his father had voted in favour of attacking the Martian dome that would have, for all intents and purposes, killed him, cleared him of any of her own suspicions. Dorothea had read it plain as day then: he hadn’t known anything about his father’s involvement in the attack. Even so, Edelgard had increased the guard on the room where the Earthens were. 

Dorothea straightened up and stepped towards the guards. “We’re here to speak to the prisoners.”

“Minister von Vestra instructed us not to let anyone through,” one of the guards retorted. 

Ferdinand walked up to the guard, taking a cursory glance at his rank and stitched name. “Lieutenant, consider this an order from a commanding officer. Let us through,” he replied coolly. 

Ferdinand had been wielding his authority as a weapon for almost his whole life thanks to his father’s position in the previous government. It had used to make her furious, but now she could almost admire it. It helped that they were interested in the same goals this time. 

The Lieutenant looked annoyed, similar to the way the guard had looked back on Victoria, the last time that Dorothea and Ferdinand had paid an unsanctioned visit to the Earthens. He did, however, step aside so that Ferdinand could open the door to the room. Dorothea smiled politely at the guards and followed Ferdinand into the room. 

She shut the door behind her and quickly noticed that both the Earthens were on their feet, staring at them. The Marine, Ingrid, looked incredibly on edge, but Sylvain’s expression was flat and assessing as he looked between her and Ferdinand. 

“Here to actually throw me out the window this time?” Sylvain said dryly. “Or maybe you’re here to offer me more Cortezine since I’m obviously not useful to you anymore.”

“Neither,” Dorothea replied calmly. “I actually wanted to ask you something about the war.”

Sylvain’s eyes narrowed and Ferdinand tensed. Dorothea touched his arm reassuringly. Ferdinand’s eyes strayed from Sylvain to her for a moment and he stepped back, following her lead. She hadn’t told him everything after all, but the fact that he was trusting her was reassuring. 

“The war that we haven’t been able to get any updates on since we’ve been locked up here?” the Marine pointed out. 

“That’s the one,” Dorothea agreed. “I want to know what you think would end the war.”

Sylvain raised an eyebrow. “Honestly? A miracle,” he said bluntly. “You shot our planet’s prince out of the sky and murdered more than a dozen Earthens in our embassy plus overturned a diplomatic mission. I don’t really see an end to this war without one group or the other being annihilated.”

Dorothea stepped towards Sylvain. Ingrid tensed, but Sylvain signalled to her discreetly and she didn’t move. Dorothea tilted her head and studied the Earthen. He was smarter than she wanted to give him credit for and if she didn’t have the ace up her sleeve, she would have been inclined to agree with them. 

“Edelgard had Vesta destroyed,” she said. “That’s why they struck at Victoria. It was retaliation for destroying Vesta.”

Sylvain didn’t look surprised, but Ingrid’s expression flickered with visible anger. “You destroyed an entire colony? Why?”

“Because she could,” Dorothea said simply. “I won’t pretend it was right or excusable because it wasn’t. Those people were innocent. They didn’t deserve to die. Neither did the people who died in Victoria.”

“We agree on that then,” Sylvain replied simply. He glanced at Ferdinand. “You’re a Navy Captain. What do you think?”

Ferdinand kept a remarkably straight face. “I think that there are pressures at play here you don’t recognize, however, I agree that innocent people should not need to die in a needless war.”

Ingrid crossed her arms. “You say needless and yet your Emperor started it.”

“We didn’t attack the Fhirdiad,” Dorothea said suddenly. 

Sylvain looked at Ingrid, finally looking genuinely surprised. “If you didn’t, then who did?”

“We don’t know,” Ferdinand replied. “But there was never any intention to kill your prince. Edelgard was actually on her way to meet him when the attack occurred.”

Ingrid stepped up next to Sylvain, sizing up Dorothea. She was the shortest person in the room, but that didn’t stop her from being intimidating. She was wearing ill-fitting clothing, but Dorothea knew that UEMC soldiers were astoundingly well trained and that Ingrid could probably take down herself and Ferdinand without hardly breaking a sweat, her own training be damned. 

“Why are you telling us all of this?” she asked. 

Dorothea looked at Ferdinand who was watching her. After all, he was almost as in the dark as the Earthens were. She suppressed the smile that wanted to curl up on her lips. “You said it would take a miracle to stop this war, right? Something like the fact that Prince Dimitri is still alive?”

Sylvain grabbed her before she realized what was going on. He spun them and her back thudded against the same window that Edelgard had pinned him to when accusing him of conspiring to destroy Victoria. 

“I’m done with your games,” he growled. The ambassador’s collected façade had completely vanished, leaving only the angry young man who was bitter and frustrated and grieving for a friend he had lost. 

Dorothea gasped against his chokehold and her eyes darted wildly to Ferdinand. He seemed completely caught off guard by Sylvain’s suddenly violent nature, but he stepped forward, moving to help her. He didn’t get the chance to as Ingrid stepped up next to Sylvain and grabbed his arm, twisting it firmly down until he was forced to release Dorothea. Ingrid pulled Sylvain back with almost no struggle and gripped his arms, putting herself between him and the two Martians. 

Dorothea slumped against the window, rubbing her throat. Ferdinand grabbed her arms and pulled her up, concerned amber eyes darting over her face and neck. She looked past him to Sylvain who still looked livid. 

“I’m not playing a game,” she said quietly, her voice hoarse. “Your friend, Felix, replied to your comm. Dimitri contacted his father. He’s alive.”

Ingrid frowned. “I really hope that’s true. If it is, then Dimitri is the only damn chance we have of ending this war.”

* * *

**SPACESHIP DERDRIU, OUTER COLONIES**

When Hilda told him that she hadn’t seen Marianne all day, Claude knew almost immediately where the kind-hearted woman would be. Sure enough, as soon as he stepped foot into the med bay on the Derdriu, he spotted Marianne sorting through medical supplies with her back to him. Claude approached her quietly, trying not to disturb her. 

“I know you’re there, Claude,” Marianne said before he could say anything. She didn’t turn towards him and kept her voice soft as she spoke.

He chuckled. “Caught me. How’d you know I wasn’t Hilda or someone else?”

“Hilda’s no good at being quiet. Ignatz would have been the only other one who could have pulled something like that and he’s been on the command deck all day working with the woman from Pallas,” Marianne explained. 

She finally turned to look at him, having secured the last of the supplies in the medical kit she was working on. Marianne had her blue hair pulled into a loose bun and she looked absolutely beat. She had been sorting through the med bays on a bunch of ships that Claude and the others had claimed for the Alliance, Martian and UEK, and she had been working long hours. 

That wasn’t what was weighing on her most heavily at the current moment though, and Claude knew that. 

“You don’t have to come with us, Marianne,” he said gently. “Holst is more than happy to host people on Ganymede while everything goes down with Hygiea.”

She shook her head. “What kind of medic would I be if I didn’t come with you all on dangerous missions?”

Claude smiled faintly. “Mercedes is a trained medic too. I think we’d be okay.”

Marianne frowned at him, but it was clear her heart wasn’t in the action. “Claude,” she began, “I’ve lost more than enough recently to know what kinds of battles I want to fight.”

“We’re still getting reports in from Vesta, you know,” he said, changing the subject abruptly. “Maybe we’ll get some good news.”

Marianne smiled sadly. “If you knew Beau even a little bit as well as I did, you’d know he anchored himself to that rock to stay.”

“We’re going to find out why Mars attacked Vesta, I promise,” he said firmly. 

Marianne turned away to look at the cabinets in the room that she had been working through. “I once thought that I brought bad luck wherever I went. Hilda helped me grow out of that, but sometimes it’s hard to imagine what would have happened if I hadn’t been to any of these places. If Beau hadn’t taken me in, would he have met you? Would he have raised the station’s influence to the point where it caught Mars’s attention as a worthy target?”

“Marianne, this isn’t your fault.”

“I know,” she agreed simply. “There’s a war going on. People die.”

Claude touched her arm lightly. “And we’d lose a hell of a lot more people without you on our side.”

Marianne giggled lightly. “Yes, we probably would, but without Mercedes or Hilda, I don’t think even I could navigate this bay.”

Claude grinned. “Death by floating tape scissors that were misplaced and not strapped down when we hit zero-g.”

“Something like that,” she agreed. She looked past him to the entrance of the med bay. “Did you come to find me for a reason?”

“I wanted to check in,” he said. “I also am supposed to tell you we should go strap in because Ignatz, Lysithea, and Mercedes are getting closer. I imagine we’re getting ready to enter Hygiea’s AO shortly.”

Marianne nodded. “Alright. Let’s head up then.”

They walked in companionable silence to the lift. Right before the doors closed, the Earthen man, Dedue, that had accompanied Ashe and Mercedes slipped onto the lift. He nodded respectfully to Claude and to Marianne, joining in their silence. 

Claude studied him. The man carried himself like a soldier, but according to Lysithea, his records were sealed. Neither of the two Earthens had been particularly open about their lives and service before they had come to the Derdriu, but Claude knew Ashe was one of the pilots deployed on the Fhirdiad, the ship that had been destroyed and with no apparent survivors. 

It was an easy enough assumption to make that Dedue had also been with Ashe on the Fhirdiad, due to the mild familiarity between the two of them. Claude had informed them that a Sergeant Fraldarius had been recovered from the debris site which had caught them both off guard. Dedue, in particular, had seemed interested in the fact that there were survivors of the Fhirdiad. If he had to guess, Claude probably would have clocked Dedue as some kind of bodyguard or private security to the now-late Prince Dimitri of the UEK. 

Still, Claude had his suspicions about some things. A bouncer plot comm from an unregistered ship had pinged the chief military advisor on Earth. There were very few reasons for something like that to happen unless his prediction was correct. He _hoped_ his prediction was correct. It would certainly make things more interesting if it was. After all, the world did love a story about a phoenix rising from the ashes.

The doors on the lift opened, letting them out onto the centre deck. Marianne walked off to presumably find Hilda and Claude headed for the central console. Dedue trailed behind him silently, but Claude didn’t worry about that fact. Mercedes, Ashe, Lysithea, and Ignatz were standing around the console, staring at a holographic display of the Derdriu’s communication systems. 

“Should we test it?” Ignatz asked.

“Yes,” Mercedes said. “This light here,” she pointed to a small red dot, “should be our indicator of whether or not it succeeded.”

“Alright,” Claude said, stepping up next to Lysithea. He pushed a button on the console and held it down. “Derdriu to Sauin. How do we look?”

There was a brief delay as the message transmitted, but Leonie’s reply came shortly after. “Martian as all hell on our scanners,” she said cheerfully. “How are we?”

Claude peeked over Lysithea’s shoulder at the comm she was holding. The Sauin, the second largest ship in the new Alliance fleet, was both broadcasting and scanning as a ship in the Martian Navy.

“Good on our end,” Lysithea replied. She turned to look at Claude and nodded. “We’re ready.” 

“Bring us in,” he instructed. 

Ignatz adjusted the autopilot of the Derdriu, shifting the large ship fully into Hygiea’s AO and the direct line of the MN Nuvelle’s scanners. No alarms blared and there were no warning shots fired. Their comms systems were quiet and no Martian ship had taken a second look at them. They were successfully camouflaged in the ranks of the Martian blockade. 

Claude smirked. “Alright, that’s step one. We have our drop teams in place?”

“Yes,” came Raphael’s response over the comm. “Drop teams are getting ready and will be set soon on the Derdriu.”

“We’re a go from the Sauin as well,” Leonie confirmed. 

“Ailell is standing by,” Judith said over the lines. 

Claude swiped his hand across the display, sliding to the next projection: a map of Hygiea’s AO and the ship manifests for the area, provided by Hilda’s defector, Caspar. The Martian blockade blinked into view and Claude waved his hand down, adding their own planned routes to the screen. 

“Alright, everyone,” he said. “Sauin, you’re on ground-team. Get down there and get the Hygiean fleet up to join us as soon as you can. Ailell, you’ll handle the skippers and the small crafts. Aim for engines and targeted weak spots. If we can make them retreat or disable their ships, that’s our best option since their firepower will outstrip us. Stay low and fast. Derdriu, our target is the MN Nuvelle. We’ll be running comm blockers and aiming for the six external engines. I want CQ’s up and ready and have the railguns on standby.”

Claude looked around the command deck. Ignatz had stepped away from the console back towards the pilot controls. Hilda and Marianne were both in the process of strapping in on one side of the deck while Lysithea, Mercedes, Dedue, and himself stood around the central console. 

He nodded to Lysithea. “Open the channel to Hygiea.”

She tapped a few things and there was a short beeping noise. “You’re live.” 

“Hygiea, this is Claude von Riegan of the Alliance of Outer Colonies. We heard you needed a hand getting rid of some pesky Martians that wouldn’t leave you alone. If you can fight, grab a weapon, and if you can’t, get to cover. Things are about to get very ugly. And to the Captain of the MN Nuvelle, since I know you’ll be picking this frequency up, this is your first and only warning to get out of here. We don’t intend to sit back any longer,” Claude said sternly. 

Dedue pointed to a green blip on the display which meant that the signal had arrived on the station and that it had been tapped by the Martian fleet. 

Claude smirked and continued, “Hygiea, I hope you’re ready for your revolution.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you wanna yell, I'm on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/nicolewrites37) and on [Tumblr](https://nicolewrites.tumblr.com/).


	15. Fifteen - The Battle for Hygiea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Revolution arrives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's time.

Fifteen - The Battle for Hygiea

* * *

**HYGIEA’S AO, OUTER COLONIES**

“Everyone had better be strapped in!” the young man at the controls yelled out to their craft. 

Mercedes leaned her head back against the headrest and adjusted the belt over her hips one more time, taking a deep breath. She was seated on one of the dropships of the Derdriu, one of the few that would be heading down to join the shuttles from the Sauin on the surface battle while the Ailell and Derdriu busied themselves with the Martian fleet. 

Piloting the craft was the young silvery-blue haired man at the controls who bore a Martian tattoo on his forearm. He was wearing combat gear decked out in the insignia of the Alliance, so she didn’t question him. She did unconsciously touch her hand to her own tattoo on her neck, tracing the circle. 

Also onboard the dropship was Hilda, Claude’s right-hand woman, a young man from Ceres named Raphael, and Dedue. All five of them were dressed in combat armour, in which Mercedes felt very uncomfortable. Even Hilda, with her short stature, seemed right at home in the bulletproof vest, arm guards, and leg guards. Dedue had been kind enough to help her suit up and do up all the fiddly straps, but Mercedes still felt strange. 

Everyone on board the dropship was armed. It was established that the Martian authorities on the station were not going to let the revolution occur quietly. Mercedes had a small firearm herself, but she had absolutely no intention of using it. Rather, she was only tagging along because she knew that the group would need a medic with them on the ground. 

“Dropping out of orbit! Everyone hold on!” the Martian, who Mercedes was pretty sure was named Caspar, called out. 

Mercedes tightened her grip on the armrests of her seat. There was a sharp moment of weightlessness before her whole body lurched up, pulling against the restraints holding her in the seat. There were several loud rattling noises as the dropship used thrusters to fire them out of orbit down towards the station. 

“How are we doing?” Hilda asked Caspar. 

“No sights on us at the moment and we’ve still got cover from the Derdriu. We should be clear to land if the gate is open,” Caspar replied. 

Mercedes grit her teeth as the ship jostled particularly hard. On the main monitor, she watched Hygiea hurtle towards them. This landing was very different from Ashe’s landing the last time she had been to the colony. Ashe had been more concerned about getting in unseen, while the concern now was about getting in without getting shot to pieces by a Martian navy ship: a focus on speed instead of precision. 

“Initiating landing sequence,” Caspar said. “This is going to be rough!”

On the monitor, the station spun in front of them as the craft executed a flip to head nose-first into the docking bay. There was a horrible screeching noise and a massive thump that jarred the entire ship. Mercedes lurched against her restraints, nearly bashing her head back against the headrest with whiplash from the landing and then the craft was still. 

Immediately, the other four passengers sprung from their seats, removing restraints and pulling on vac shells, lightweight vacuum suits that would get them through the nonpressurized docking bay into the central station. Mercedes fumbled out of her own seat, clicking her grav boots on, and was about to reach for her own vac shell when a hand extended towards her, offering it. 

Mercedes mustered a weak smile and took it from Dedue, stepping into it. Without asking, he leaned down and helped her pull it into place, securing her zippers and ties so that she was safely protected. She squeezed his arm in thanks but didn’t stop to wait, reaching down to grab her medical kit, slinging it over her back. 

“Raph, get the hatch,” Hilda ordered. “Cameras show us clear through the docks, but we make straight for the airlock doors and do not stop running,” she instructed the rest of them. 

Raphael bent down and dropped open the hatch at the base of the ship, immediately dropping down onto the ground below the ship. Caspar hopped down after him, followed by Hilda. Dedue went next, and then Mercedes made her way to the edge of the hole. Dedue extended a hand up to help her down in a strange mirror to the way he had helped her back when they had first arrived on the Derdriu. 

Mercedes took his hand and let him help her down. As soon as her boots locked to the floor, they both took off in a jog after the other three towards the eastern airlock doors. As soon as they arrived, Hilda opened the airlock, pushing them all in. The door sealed behind them and everyone immediately began stripping off the bulky vac shells. 

Mercedes stepped out of hers just as the doors on the other side of the airlock opened. They ran to the elevator and took the lift downwards, heading into central Hygiea. When the elevator doors opened, she immediately heard the sounds of yelling and gunfire. She squared her shoulders and hefted her medical bag up onto her shoulders. Hilda pulled a rifle off her back and turned to face them. 

“Remember, we’re trying to take the central atrium with the town hall and the launch bay on the western side of the station. If we do that, we can release the Hygiean fleet up to join everyone else in orbit,” Hilda rehashed. 

Caspar bumped his arm against Hilda’s. “I’m with Hilda and Raph. We’re going for the western bay. Dedue, Mercedes, you two should join up with Leonie in the square.”

“Yes,” Dedue agreed. He held his own rifle up. “Good luck.”

“Godspeed to us all,” Mercedes said. 

Raphael nodded and led the way out of the sheltered airlock. He, Caspar, and Hilda peeled off to the right and broke into a jog. Dedue started down the central hallway and paused to look back at her when she didn’t follow him immediately. 

“Mercedes?”

She shook her head. “Coming.” 

Dedue led the way through the tunnel until the sounds of yelling and gunfire were no longer further away and they entered the central square. Almost immediately, Dedue raised his weapon and fired several rounds into the chest of a Martian Lieutenant who had been about to shoot them in return. 

Mercedes looked past the Marine to where a young, unarmoured man was lying against the wall, holding a bloody hand to his side. She dropped to her knees next to him and ran a quick mental evaluation. He had a bullet wound in his leg and one on his side and by the pallor of his skin, he was going to bleed out before she would be of much help to him. Mercedes tapped his forehead lightly.

“You’ll be okay,” she lied swiftly before she stood up and noticed that Dedue was looking at her, a frown on his face. 

She stepped towards him and grabbed his arm, guiding him away from the dying Hygiean. He followed without resistance, but she did notice the way that his jaw set. 

“We can’t help everyone. Our goal is to help those that we can,” Mercedes reminded gently. 

Dedue nodded. “Yes,” he agreed. “But that does not make it any easier to watch a young person die.”

Before Mercedes could reply, a spray of bullets slammed into the metal above her head and she immediately ducked, lunging forward to an overturned vendor’s cart which provided a bit of cover. Dedue hunched down next to her, firing a few shots from his rifle in the direction of the bullets that had been flying at them. 

Hunched together behind their flimsy cover, Mercedes knew they had precious seconds before whoever shot at them would advance on their position. Reluctantly, she drew her gun and Dedue frowned, looking at it. 

“Mercedes,” he said. 

She shook her head. “There is no time for hesitation in a warzone,” she replied simply. 

He did not get to argue again before a shadow rounded the edge of the cart. Dedue immediately shifted onto one knee and fired two shots into the approaching Martian soldier. Mercedes looked around and spotted the second shadow coming from the other side a split second too late. She raised her pistol and fired, but she was slow on the draw as the Martian Ensign fired a shot at Dedue. 

Mercedes’s shot ended up missing anyways and Dedue turned and quickly took down the other Martian. He tried to stand up, and stumbled, the sight of his gun dipping. Mercedes jumped up, catching him around the waist and she hauled him back until they were able to take cover inside what looked like a smashed-up hotel lobby. 

She eased Dedue down against the wall and he grunted. She leaned forward, noticing the red seeping through his combat gear at his shoulder. She ripped open the medical kit and pressed a bandage over his shoulder. She grabbed his left hand and pushed it against his right shoulder. 

“Hold this,” she instructed. 

“Mercedes,” he tried to argue with her. 

She levelled a stern glare at him. “I came down here to help injured people. You’re injured. I’m going to help you.”

She pulled out a low-dosage steroid shot and leaned forward, jabbing it into his arm without warning. He grunted but kept his hand on his shoulder to keep the pressure on his wound. She was about to find a gauze roll so that she could secure the bandage when she heard footsteps crunching over glass nearby. 

She didn’t have time to get her pistol into her hand before a Martian Ensign stumbled into the hotel lobby, his gun raised. Mercedes pivoted, using her body to shield Dedue as she faced the Martian, her hands raised in surrender. 

“I’m just a medic,” she cried. She tilted her head to the side, exposing her tattoo. “I’m Martian too!”

The Ensign hesitated, obviously noticing what she had flashed at him. “Martian?” The nose of his gun dipped briefly before he brought it back up, his brow tightening in suspicion. “Why are you wearing rebel colours then?”

Mercedes’s breath caught, but before she or the Martian soldier could do anything, there was a sharp crack as a staff reared up and cracked against the back of the soldier’s head. He collapsed in a pile and Mercedes’s gaze fixed on the young woman standing behind him. She was wearing Martian combat gear that was covered in the symbols of the Hygiean rebels. 

She was holding her staff in one hand and a long purple braid fell over her shoulder. Mercedes recognized her. It was the young woman who Ashe was in contact with on Hygiea, the granddaughter of the governor. 

She seemed to recognize them as well, her expression brightening as she flipped her dark braid over her shoulder. “You are Ashe’s friends, yes?” 

Mercedes nodded. “We are.”

The woman, Petra, grinned. “Thank you for bringing us the revolution.”

* * *

**SPACESHIP DERDRIU, HYGIEA’S AO**

Ashe was shocked that Claude and the other members of the Alliance trusted him enough to fly second-point on their flagship, but he wasn’t going to complain. The Derdriu was by far the largest vessel he had ever been given command of, but it was still a former UEK vessel so he knew, mostly, how it worked. 

Between him and Ignatz, the first-point pilot who had been born and raised on Ceres, they were doing a pretty good job of moving the Derdriu through Hygiea’s orbit to provide cover for the Alliance dropships and to keep a lock on the MN Nuvelle, the Martian fleet command ship.

Ashe pushed the lower thrusters down and pulled up the CQ weapons log. Their ammunition levels were surprisingly good, thanks to some insightful planning on Claude’s part on when and where they should be firing. They had used torpedoes to take out two of the smaller Martian ships, but if they had attempted to take out the Nuvelle with a torpedo, it probably would have resulted in a larger explosion. As a result, they were sticking to the close quarters guns on the port and starboard sides of the Derdriu. 

“Alright, port side CQ’s have target-lock on the fourth engine,” Ashe called out to the command deck of the Derdriu. 

His voice was muffled by his vac suit, but his message was obviously received well enough when Claude replied.

“Fire four capsules and let’s hit it hard. Ignatz, take us into a drop once we do. Let’s swing starboard side on them,” Claude ordered. 

Ashe slid four slides up on his monitor, loading four capsules full of CQ ammo. He ignited the cannons and watched on his secondary monitor as the port side guns blasted a spray of bullets into the side of the MN Nuvelle. 

“Initiating drop now,” Ignatz called out, pulling down on the controls. 

Ashe immediately adjusted his focus back to flight controls and pushed the forward-facing thrusts to help push the ship into a steep flip to drop out underneath the Nuvelle. He gritted his teeth against the burst of force put on by the maneuver, but Ignatz guided them smoothly up the other side of the Nuvelle. 

“Fire the starboard cannons,” Claude ordered. 

Ashe launched four capsules of bullets and watched them streak towards the Nuvelle in sharp, spraying lines, causing a minor explosion over the fifth external engine. They had successfully taken out four of the six main engines on the Nuvelle while only losing one of the Derdriu’s four. Ashe immediately tapped the command to reload the cannons on both sides and pushed the thrusters at the bottom of the ship to guide the ship into a slow sink around the Nuvelle. 

Overall, it was clear that the Martian fleet out-classed the Alliance in terms of firepower and number of ships, but they had been caught completely off-guard by the attack. Between the incredibly savvy tactics planned out by Claude and the fact that several Alliance ships had infiltrated the Martian ranks unnoticed before the battle began, the Alliance had the upper hand in the fight and, based on what Ashe could see, the Martians were losing the battle in Hygiea’s AO.

However, they were not retreating. 

Claude had guessed early on that the space-bound fleet wouldn’t retreat unless they were sure they were going to lose the station entirely. It was the reason that Claude had sent as many people as they could spare down to the surface both to try and free the Hygiean ships as well as to capture as much of the station as possible.

“Incoming message from Hilda,” Lysithea called out from the far side of the command deck. “They’ve reached the western launch bay.”

Ashe adjusted his camera’s view, watching the western bay on the colony. The bay doors slowly began to creak open and bursts of red light fired out as more than a dozen small and medium state of the art Martian warships were launched. A cheer went up across the comms systems for the Alliance as the newly launched Hygiean ships began to target the Martian fleet, joining the rebellion in open space. 

“Open me a channel to the MN Nuvelle,” Claude requested. 

“On it,” Lysithea replied. There was a low beeping noise and then she continued: “Channel on.”

“To the captain of the MN Nuvelle, as I’m sure you have recently been informed, your people are losing the fight on the surface. The Hygieans are done living under Mars’s thumb. Today, they join Ceres and Ganymede as free nations. Today, we welcome them to our Alliance of Outer Colonies. This is your last opportunity to disengage and remove yourself from the battle. Otherwise, the Alliance ship, the Derdriu, and the rest of our navy will continue its assault on both you and your fleet. This is your last warning,” Claude said sharply. 

Ashe resisted the urge to shiver at the words. They were passionate and effective and made him realize the true extent of Claude’s oration skills. It made sense why after years of attempted revolutions in the colonies that he had finally been the one to unite enough forces under his command to really start the movement. 

Ashe watched in awe as the Nuvelle’s charted course changed, their target moving back to Mars. He grinned despite himself as he coaxed the Derdriu away from the Nuvelle, assisting Ignatz in returning them to Hygiea’s orbit: away from the now-retreating Martian fleet command ship. 

“They’re retreating,” he said, not able to quell the excitement in his tone. 

“Lysithea,” Claude ordered. “Get a comm to the surface and spread the news. Mars is retreating and Hygiea is free. Ignatz, get us in low orbit. I want to head down to the surface as soon as the Nuvelle leaves Hygiea’s AO. Ashe, will you fly me down?”

Ashe felt surprised at the request, but he certainly wasn’t going to turn it down. He wanted to make sure that Mercedes and Dedue, who had gone down with a dropship were alright and, of course, he wanted to see Petra again. 

“Of course,” he responded instantly. 

“Good,” Claude said. “Let’s head to a pod then. Marianne, would you care to join us?”

“Yes. I have a medical kit I can bring down,” Marianne, the quiet Alliance medic agreed. 

Ashe flipped a switch to enable autopilot for the second-point chair and undid his restraints. He stood up and walked across the command deck, joining Claude and Marianne at the lift that went down to the launch bay. The three of them kept their vac suits on as they made their way to the dropships. 

Claude pointed out a small four-seater pod to him and Ashe quickly entered his access codes to unlock it and then hopped up into the ship, putting himself behind the pilot’s controls. He fired up the ship’s drive and began getting it flight-ready, locking the autopilot target onto the central docking bay on Hygiea. He was just finishing the last few pre-launch checks when the comm in his suit chimed. 

“MN Nuvelle has officially left Hygiea’s AO. Their course remains locked on Mars,” Lysithea reported. “You’re cleared to launch from Derdriu to Hygiea.”

Ashe tightened his restraints and settled his hands on the flight controls. “Strap in,” he called to Claude and Marianne. 

He gently pushed forward on the controls, lifting the landing gear of the pod and engaging the thrusters to guide them out of the launch bay on the Derdriu. He nudged the ship along slowly until they were a few hundred feet out from the Derdriu before he fired the thrusters into a higher gear, sending the pod into a smooth arc down towards Hygiea, following the autopilot route he had set. 

The loading dock was open as they descended and Ashe opened a comm channel as they got closer. “Pod 12A from the AN Derdriu coming in to dock,” he reported. 

Slowly, he guided the pod down, balancing manual controls and autopilot to lower the base of the pod to the landing pad, docking them safely. He killed the engine and snapped his grav boots on, releasing his restraints. Claude and Marianne copied him and together they opened the hatch at the bottom of the pod. 

Ashe dropped out first and quickly made his way towards the airlock doors, following the same path he took the first time he came to Hygiea. After a moment, Claude and Marianne caught up and they were able to enter the pressurized, central part of the station. They took the lift down and Ashe removed his helmet and immediately went on the lookout for any familiar faces. 

The first people they ran into were Hilda and Caspar, both of whom seemed a little roughed up, but alright overall. Claude stopped to talk with Hilda and Marianne stayed behind to check out their injuries. Ashe ventured on, looking for Mercedes and Dedue. 

The square’s noise was almost deafening. Ashe almost wished for the sound-filtering capabilities of the vac suit as he ducked under the flailing arm of a celebrating Hygiean rebel. He squeezed through crowds of celebrating people and tried not to look at the bodies of Martian and Hygiean soldiers that were still lying in the streets. 

He spotted Dedue first. The Earthen man was sitting on a bench in the central square that had been packed with protestors the last time he was here. Now, it was full of people who were hugging, cheering and celebrating. The atmosphere felt completely different. Ashe hurried towards Dedue.

“Dedue!” he called, waving as he jogged over. 

Dedue smiled at him as he approached and Ashe noticed that Mercedes was standing next to him. She beamed at him. 

“You made it!” she said warmly. 

Ashe nodded. He then noticed the white cloth wrapped around Dedue’s shoulder that was stained red. He stared. “You were shot!” he exclaimed, worried, as the recognition set in. 

Dedue shook his head. “Do not worry, Ashe. Mercedes has taken care of it. I will be fine.”

“There’s someone else you should see,” Mercedes said, gently nudging his shoulder. 

Ashe turned and saw Petra standing a few feet away, dressed in the colours of the Hygiean rebels. She recognized him at about the same time as he recognized her and she smiled at him, immediately making her way towards him. Ashe instinctively closed the distance towards her until they were standing right in front of each other. 

Since he had left Hygiea the first time, he and Petra had kept in touch as best as they could both so that they could communicate about Petra’s request for the Alliance and also so that they could just make sure that they were both okay. He had never seemed to run out of words while talking to her over comm before, but now that she was in front of him and her people were free, his mind went completely blank. 

Now, all he could see was the intricate and interesting braiding pattern in her hair and the way her cheeks were flushed under tan skin from exertion and how it highlighted the tattoo on her cheek. Her eyes were dancing with joy, infected by the contagious excitement of the people around them who were celebrating their freedom. Freedom that they had both had a hand in. 

Petra seemed equally as speechless as he felt for a moment before she stepped even closer to him, close enough that the chest of her armour brushed against his vac suit. She leaned up, placing a warm, gloved hand on his cheek, and pulled him down into a kiss. Ashe froze against her, but when she didn’t immediately pull back, he was able to jumpstart his brain and kiss her back. 

After a second she leaned back, but she was smiling at him and Ashe felt his face heat up. He scrounged up the courage to smile down at her in response. 

“It’s good to see you again,” he breathed. He was almost certain she couldn’t hear him over the cheering crowd that was still celebrating around them, but her eyes brightened. 

“I am happy to be seeing you as well, Ashe,” she replied. 

* * *

**SPACESHIP SEIROS, THE ASTEROID BELT**

Byleth was used to having Sothis to back her up. Normally, she could just ask her AI to run a scan of the ship’s systems, but since Sothis was offline, Byleth had to do everything manually. Her workload on the ship had practically tripled and it didn’t help that the Seiros had sustained heavy damages when Vesta had exploded. 

Byleth was keeping the ship afloat for now, but she knew that she would need help soon. 

She and Dimitri had sent out a test transmission almost three days ago now. Byleth had tracked the transmission along its intended route towards Pallas when it had suddenly blinked offline, having been intercepted and blacked out by an unintended recipient. It had been a horrible, anxious waiting game since then to see if whoever had intercepted their transmission would either trace it and attack them or simply reply to them. 

Byleth had wanted to keep trying to get a transmission to Earth, but Dimitri had been hesitant, reminding her that he didn’t need to give Mars another leg up in the war by letting them know that the UEK Prince was still alive and floating along in space, practically undefended. He was right, of course, but that didn’t make the situation any less frustrating. 

Byleth was working on rewiring a few things on the command deck when one of the news alert alarms that she had set up went off. She pulled herself up from the floor and pulled the alert up on the screen. Fuzzy camera video and screenshots scrolled by and Byleth recognized the area of space that they were from. 

She pushed a button on the console to comm Dimitri. “Hey,” she began, “I think you need to see this. I’m at command.”

She studied the images on the hologram for a few minutes until the command deck door hissed open and Dimitri made his way inside. His hair was damp and he looked half-asleep, but he perked up when he saw the display.

“Are those Martian ships?” he asked, walking over to join her. 

“Yes,” Byleth agreed. “And they’re retreating.”

“From where?”

She pointed out the station in the backdrop of the image. “Hygiea, apparently. Preliminary reports are stating that someone led a revolution to overthrow Martian authorities on the station.”

Dimitri raised an eyebrow. “A revolution, huh?”

Byleth pursed her lips. “You’re thinking that this has something to do with Ceres, right? And that man, Claude?”

Dimitri nodded. “It does seem like his MO. If Hygiea was ready to revolt, it certainly wouldn’t be far off-brand for Claude for him to step in and nudge it along.” Dimitri squinted at the photos and pointed out a blurry blob that was in the background of some of the photos. “That doesn’t look like a Martian ship.”

Byleth waved her hands up, zooming in the photo. Sure enough, the ship definitely didn’t look like a Martian ship. It looked a bit like a UEN vessel, but they weren’t flying any UEK emblems, similar to how the Seiros looked. 

“I would guess that’s probably a colony ship,” she said.

He nodded. “I suppose that makes sense.” 

Before either of them could assess the situation any further, the transmission line blinked on the ship. Byleth hesitated but pulled it up. She scanned the summary of it and glanced at Dimitri. 

“This comm is coming from that area. What would you like to do?”

Dimitri shook his head. “Don’t default to me. This is your ship,” he said firmly. 

Byleth gave him a faint smile and opened the comm. It was a voice comm with no video link attached that began playing as soon as she opened it. 

“ _To the person who attempted to send an encrypted comm to Pallas in the middle of a war zone, I admire your guts. You probably noticed that I managed to snag it before it reached its intended destination. I was hoping you might be interested in exchanging words with me, in person, sometime soon. This message is pre-recorded but is being sent out upon the successful capture of Hygiea by the Alliance of Outer Colonies. Hopefully, that knowledge eases your worries about being seen by Earthen or Martian ships. I am interested in meeting the captain of a ship that is specially designed to stay off of the radars of both nations._ ”

The voice in the transmission had been one of a young man who seemed open and blunt about his intentions. Byleth tapped her fingers along the console and frowned, considering their options. They could respond to the comm and arrange a meeting with this person or they could ignore the comm and hope that the person simply left them alone. 

“What are the chances that whoever sent this already knows our location?” Dimitri asked.

Byleth pressed her lips together. “High,” she admitted. 

Dimitri nodded. “Well, as I said, it’s your ship, but I’m starting to think that we’re in need of some more allies.”

Byleth smiled faintly. “Unfortunately, that seems to be the case, doesn’t it? If the person who sent this is a part of the Alliance, maybe they’ll help you. It’s not a UEN ship, but at least it’s not Mars.”

Dimitri sighed. “It’s our best shot, isn’t it?”

Byleth opened a comm channel to reply to the message. “We’ll meet you,” she said. “But, you come alone and you come to our ship to talk. That’s non-negotiable.”

She sent the comm before she could talk herself out of it. She turned to the flight controls on the ship and charted an easy autopilot course towards Hygiea. Dimitri was watching her when she turned back to him. 

“If he comes here then you can hide. You don’t have to show yourself until we’ve established whether or not we’re going to trust this person,” Byleth explained. 

Dimitri shrugged. “It’s a good plan. I trust you.”

Her chest warmed at the words. It had been a long time since she had spent such extended periods of time with another person that wasn’t an AI personality. She liked Dimitri. He was honest and polite and he had a charming smile, but every time she looked at him she was reminded that the two galactic powers were currently at war and it was her own shortcomings that had prevented her from returning him safely to his planet in hopes of stopping the war. 

A few minutes passed of nothing before they received a reply on the comms. It was a text comm. 

[ _Alright. I agree to your terms. Myself and a pilot will enter the neutral space of Hygiea’s AO. I will hail you again at that point. The pilot will remain on my pod._ ]

Byleth squared her shoulders. “Well, that’s something, I guess.”

Dimitri nodded. “Let’s get ready to greet our guest.”

Byleth’s hand fell to her holstered gun. “Right,” she agreed.

Together, they made their way down towards the lower decks on the Seiros, to where they could open the bay doors and allow a pod to dock. Just as they were securing a last few things, Byleth’s comm buzzed with the notification that a nearby pod was hailing them. 

Byleth pushed Dimitri’s shoulder, practically shoving him behind a set of shelves that would hide him from their visitor. She sat on the edge of a crate and authorized the pod to dock. There was silence on the ship besides the humming of engines and the creaking of ships as the pod moved into docking. The airlock doors hissed as someone stepped into the airlock and Byleth let her hand rest on her gun. She was prepared to use it if she had to. 

Once the airlock was pressurized, she unlocked the second door that led into the ship. To her surprise, stepping out of the airlock was Claude von Riegan himself, the leader of the revolution in the Outer Colonies. He was wearing combat armour decorated with yellow insignias that Byleth had never seen before. He stepped onto the ship and took a glance around, curiosity glimmering in sharp green eyes. 

“You’re Claude von Riegan,” Byleth said, narrowing her eyes. 

He tilted his head, giving her a casual smile. “I am. And this is the ship that has been dodging my team’s scans for weeks, isn’t it?”

Byleth stared him down. “Why did you intercept our transmission?”

“Why are you sending a coded transmission from an unlabelled, unaffiliated ship to a UEK colony in the middle of a war?” he countered. 

Byleth frowned. “Why are you here?” she asked coldly.

“Because I wanted to meet you,” he replied plainly. “I wanted to know the kind of person who could hide a ship this size from both sides of a war.” He studied the ship around them, his eyes lingering on the shelves that Dimitri was sheltered behind. “A ship this big can’t be crewed by one woman alone, can it?”

Byleth crossed her arms. “I’m a one-man crew,” she rebuked. 

He raised an eyebrow. “And someone is hiding behind the shelves on purpose?”

Byleth didn’t want Dimitri to come out of hiding. They had no idea what Claude’s real intentions were in coming to their ship, but Dimitri apparently didn’t share the intensity of her suspicions, because he stepped out from behind the shelves, entering Claude’s field of view.

Claude’s eyebrows shot up when he recognized Dimitri, but a smirk curled up his lips. “Well, I’ll admit, I had had my suspicions, but it’s certainly something else to see you here in person, Your Highness. You have been the subject of more than a few headlines in the last month.”

Dimitri’s expression was flat and unamused as he came to stand next to Byleth. “And you’re the man who has caused so much trouble for my government in the recent past.”

Claude bowed mockingly. “Pleasure to finally meet you, even though, you know, you are supposed to be dead.”


	16. Sixteen - The Alliance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lysithea cracks the code. Felix digs deeper. Edelgard draws the line.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to be too busy to post this tomorrow, so I'll just drop it now! Back to the regularly scheduled Sunday updates next week, however.
> 
> ALSO BECAUSE I PROMISED TO PLUG IT. SYLVGRID BIG BANG. ON TWITTER. [JOIN US](https://twitter.com/SylvgridBigBang?s=20).

Sixteen - The Alliance

* * *

**SPACESHIP SEIROS, HYGIEA’S AO**

The moment that Claude comm’d the Derdriu and asked Lysithea to come over and meet him, she knew it was going to be a bad idea. Still, she had agreed to come over and Claude had sent Ignatz, who had originally ferried him from Hygiea to the mysterious ship back to the Derdriu to fetch her. Ignatz seemed just as confused about the whole situation as she felt since apparently the mysterious person’s conditions were that only Claude was to leave the ship. 

The ship didn’t have any insignia or identifying features that placed it in one fleet or another and according to her initial scans of it, it also wasn’t registered to either Earth or Mars’s fleets and it definitely wasn’t one of their ships. On their approach, Ignatz had pointed out to her all the little structural bits that made it appear to have been built by the UEK, not Mars. Apparently, it was an older model of the type of ship that developed into the cruiser-class, making it a much smaller and older ship than the Derdriu. 

Lysithea knew first hand how difficult it was to remove all traceable UEN programming from a large ship. If Claude’s claim about this ship was true in that there was only one person on board, then that person was a goddamn miracle worker. She still hated being on spaceships, but she couldn’t deny the fact that she was a least a little bit excited as Ignatz pulled into the bay of the ship and landed. 

Ignatz began running some system diagnostics on the little pod while they waited for the bay to pressurize before Lysithea could leave the ship. Lysithea sent a comm to Claude to tell him that she had landed. Claude’s response came quickly, telling her that he would meet her in the bay as soon as it finished pressurizing. 

A beep sounded throughout the pod and Lysithea looked at Ignatz for confirmation. “It’s ready?”

“Yes,” he agreed. 

Ignatz stood up and popped the bottom hatch of the ship. He lowered a rickety rope ladder down the opening and Lysithea wrinkled her nose at it. She slid her datapad into the satchel she was carrying and climbed down the ladder. She paused at the bottom of it and looked up at Ignatz.

“You’re not coming?”

He shook his head. “Claude said that he’d rather take these introductions slowly.” He adjusted his glasses and gave her a sheepish smile. “Besides, I’m just a pilot. That’s what I’m good at.”

Lysithea bit her tongue. Ignatz was wonderfully sweet but incredibly hard on himself. She often found herself wanting to correct him, but the last time she had tried had just resulted in her lecturing him, so she resisted the urge, less she made him feel worse. She brushed out a wrinkle on her blouse and nodded.

“Okay.”

“Lysithea! There’s my favourite kiddo!” Claude called teasingly. 

Lysithea turned, already frowning, and found Claude crossing the bay towards her, his hands tucked in his pockets casually. He had shed the protective plates of his armour, leaving him in a black turtleneck and simple pants. She crossed her arms. 

“Are you going to explain to me what’s going on?” she demanded, walking over to him. 

Claude smiled. “I think you’re going to enjoy this one. Remember that ship you had been trying to track that picked up our comm a while back?”

She remembered. It wasn’t often that someone was able to avoid her tracing attempts, much less spoof her so that she picked up their signal in multiple places at once. “Of course I do.”

“This is the ship.”

She stopped just short of the airlock doors and stared at him in disbelief. “This is the ship? Let me guess, this is also the ship that briefly blipped on our sensors in Hygiea’s AO a while ago.”

Claude pushed a button to open the airlock. “That is correct,” he agreed. “They are also the ship whose transmission you and Ashe traced on that bouncer plot that you pinpointed on Titan.”

Lysithea followed Claude into the airlock, her mind whirring to try and put the pieces together. “So whoever is on this ship was sending messages to Admiral Fraldarius back on Earth?”

Claude nodded. “Just, maybe, think before you say anything at this next part, alright?”

Lysithea narrowed her eyes. “What does that mean?”

The airlock hissed open and Lysithea immediately noted that there were two people waiting for them. She recognized one of them and she stopped in her tracks, staring at the UEK Prince. 

“You’re supposed to be dead,” she said without thinking. 

Claude chuckled next to her. “That’s what I said.”

The woman next to the prince put a hand on her hip. “You’re the one who keeps jacking my transmissions?”

Lysithea lifted her chin and studied the woman. She was wearing the coveralls for the ship with them rolled and tied around her waist and she had dark blue hair. “I am,” she agreed. 

The woman nodded, a small smile curling up her lips. “Right. Well, that’s some fancy work you’ve been doing.”

Lysithea looked back at Claude, folding her arms. “What’s going on here?”

Claude was studying the UEK Prince. “Well, as we were previously discussing, we were going to try to get a direct beam comm to Earth because His Highness has a war to end, but it’s not exactly safe for us to broadcast out like that since we don’t know who blew up his ship.”

“Mars blew up the UEN Fhirdiad,” Lysithea replied instinctively. “Everyone knows that.”

Claude shrugged. “Everyone except Mars, apparently.”

Lysithea thought back to a set of comms that Claude had asked her to decrypt once. She had told him to do it himself since she was busy working on their security problem with transmission codes. Apparently, he must have figured it out himself. She pressed her lips together and turned to the UEK Prince.

“How did you get to this ship? You certainly didn’t go floating around in open space.”

The prince looked like he was about to reply when the young woman cut him off. “A Razorback drop shuttle. Built for speed and agility, not longevity,” she explained. 

Lysithea brightened. “Do you still have the ship? I might be able to pull something from the ship’s computer.”

The prince looked surprised. “I thought you said that the ship was basically dead,” he said to the young woman. 

She was studying Lysithea, her eyes straying to her hair notably. “My AI ran a scan of the ship’s systems. We didn’t find anything, but I can take you to it if you want to run a couple more scans.”

Lysithea nodded. She turned to Claude. “Coming?”

He shook his head. “No, I think His Highness and I should probably discuss some things. Information is valuable in these times.” 

Claude’s green eyes were glinting in the way that they did when he was scheming so Lysithea just turned away from him, back to the other woman. If Claude was going to scheme, he should have dragged Hilda here, not her. 

“The Razorback?” she prompted. 

The woman nodded. “Yeah, it’s actually just out in the dock.” 

The woman stepped past Lysithea to the airlock and opened it. She looked back expectantly and Lysithea followed her. Claude was more than capable of fending for himself and she knew he was more likely to do well in this kind of discussion than some polished prince. Once she was in the airlock, the other woman released them into the docking bay of the ship. Ignatz’s craft was still parked where it had been before, but now Lysithea caught sight of a lumpy shape in the far corner of the bay: a ship with a protective sheet thrown over it. 

They walked together across the bay and Lysithea caught the woman stealing another glance at her hair. 

“Gravity sickness,” she replied shortly. 

“What?”

“My hair and eyes? It’s because of gravity sickness meds. You know, the condition that develops when people try to enter fields of gravity that their bodies aren’t built for? Except my body isn’t built for any type of gravity at all,” Lysithea explained. 

“Oh, I didn’t know it could develop naturally like that. Um, I’m Byleth, by the way, since I don’t think we were ever introduced.” She stopped walking and held a hand out to Lysithea.

Lysithea’s lip twitched. “Naturally,” she agreed vaguely. “I’m Lysithea.” She nodded to the lumpy thing in the corner. “Is that the Razorback?”

“Yeah,” Byleth agreed. 

The two women strode over to it and managed to awkwardly tear the sheet off the top of it, revealing a very beat-up, dead-looking Razorback shuttle. The control panel on the side was already open so Lysithea walked over to it, pulling out her comm. She grabbed one of the wires and hooked it to her comm as she downloaded the memory from the ship’s drive. 

“You said your AI looked at this already?” she asked Byleth. 

Byleth’s expression tightened. “She’s deactivated now, but she did a thorough scan.”

Lysithea noted the sensitive topic and moved on, refocusing her attention to her comm as she ran a system diagnostic test on the Razorback. Her comm beeped after a moment, drawing up a few broken code lines. She tapped out a few things, furrowing her brow, and reconstructed the code. 

“External feed and transmission logs,” she said to Byleth, tilting her comm so the other woman could see. “It was corrupted, so I’m guessing your AI just missed it.”

Byleth hummed in agreement as the two women scanned the information scrolling on Lysithea’s comm’s screen. To her surprise, the recorded transmission logs of right before showed a sudden blip of missile codes that were way too close to make any sense. Remotely launched missiles always had strong transponder signals thanks to their navigation systems. 

She inhaled sharply. If these missiles were appearing out of basically thin air, then it could only mean one thing: stealth tech. If someone had used stealth tech to take out the Fhirdiad, then the whole war was about to get a whole lot more complicated. 

“Those are stealth missiles,” Byleth breathed. “Just like the ship that destroyed Vesta.”

* * *

**NEW YORK CITY, EARTH**

Felix had been crashing at Annette’s apartment since the attacks on Victoria. On the seventh day, he got the comm. There was no video attached this time, just a simple text message on an encrypted channel. 

[ _Does Earth have stealth tech? - D_ ]

Felix stared at the message. Stealth tech? The kind of technology that would completely change the course of any war or conflict between Earth and Mars if it actually existed? That was what Dimitri wanted him to look into? Felix dropped his comm to the table and rubbed his face. From in the kitchen, Annette tilted her head curiously, staring at him. 

“Everything okay?”

“I heard from Dimitri,” he admitted. “He wants me to look into Earth’s stealth tech program which, as far as everyone knows, doesn’t exist.”

Annette’s brow furrowed and she stopped kneading the dough she had been working on. “Stealth tech? Why Earth’s stealth tech?”

Felix traced a circle on the table with one finger as he frowned. “I have a horrible feeling I know why, but I would really like to not think about that.”

Annette frowned but seemed like she was mostly willing to let the topic pass. “Okay,” she said simply. 

Felix sighed. “I should do some digging though. And sooner than later. I still have no idea what the transmission delay back to Dimitri is.”

“You don’t have clearance for that, do you?”

“No, definitely not. This would be something only available to the highest-ranking officials,” Felix admitted. It was going to be an irritating hurdle to pass. He was probably going to have to talk to Gwendal Rowe or Valen Galatea.

“High-ranking like the Security Council?” Annette continued. 

Felix paused his train of thoughts and narrowed his eyes at her. “Annette?”

She pulled her hands out of the dough she was kneading and quickly ran her fingers under some cold water. She stepped out of the kitchen, reaching for her purse, and pulled out a small ID card, placing it on the counter. Felix stood up and picked up the card. He looked between it and the redhead. 

“How did you get this?”

“I delivered some files to his office today for Cornelia and it was between a couple of files on his desk. He already had a different pass on his jacket so I figured he wouldn’t need this one too. I just,” she paused, flushing, “took it.”

Felix ran a hand through his hair and looked down at the Security ID he was holding. “It’s one way to do this,” he admitted. 

He was, begrudgingly, impressed by Annette’s forethought in swiping the badge. If they needed high-ranking access, he was more than happy to use Sylvain’s asshole father’s clearance to get the information he needed. It was a bonus if it threw some of Cornelia’s suspicions onto Andre. 

“Can the bread wait?” he asked abruptly. 

Annette blinked. “What?”

“Tonight. It’s best if we do this tonight. I was going to head back to HQ if you want to come.” 

Annette nodded. “Of course I’ll come. I’m not letting you go without me,” she said stubbornly. She turned back to her lump of dough on the counter and plopped it back into a glass bowl, draping a towel over the top of it. She turned back to him. “Let’s go.”

It didn’t take them too long to get back to the HQ. Since the working day had been over for a couple of hours, the train wasn’t too busy heading back towards the UEK HQ and the building itself seemed mostly empty as people had long since cleared out for the day, heading home. 

Felix was still moving more slowly than he wanted to be, but his recovery was almost complete. He felt better every day, but it wasn’t perfect. Still, it was good enough that he kept an eye out for security cameras and directed Annette down the pathways that had them seen by the fewest number of cameras. 

Felix led them quickly and as stealthily as possible towards the records room. When they stood outside the locked room, Felix swiped Andre’s Security ID and the door beeped, sliding open. He ushered Annette in and closed the door behind them, sealing them in the record room which was a large terminal and several massive databanks. 

Annette looked around the room. “Why records?” she asked curiously “Shouldn’t we be looking at military schematics?”

“All those schematics have to be backed up to these types of rooms. While any ranking soldier can check records, having a high ranking ID,” he tapped Andre’s against the console, “opens up more files for viewing. If we wanted the widest possible net to catch a glimpse of anything like this, we needed to do it in records.”

Annette was already busy scanning some of the reports on the screen. She located a file named “Odysseus” and opened it. Felix blinked at her. 

She smiled. “Odysseus is an ancient trickster famous for his cunning and sneaky tactics. The perfect code name for a stealth project.”

Felix scrolled through the available reports. There were dozens of weapons and field test reports charted from Earth, Phoebe, and Pallas. The ones dated Phoebe were over thirty years old and held nothing relevant, but the reports from Pallas were only 6 weeks old. Felix pulled one up. 

To his disappointment, the report detailed another failed testing of stealth technology. According to the report, the failed tests had been Earth’s most promising stealth missiles. If they had failed then it meant that it was highly unlikely Earth had any working stealth tech. 

“I guess that answers your question,” Annette said quietly as she skimmed over the report. 

Felix frowned and closed the report. He was about to kill the whole terminal when another file caught his attention. It was a locked file only accessible to members of the UEK Security Council that was simply labelled “Victoria”. Felix thought of the horrifying images played on the holoscreens after Earth had destroyed the central Martian dome. 

He opened it. 

The name at the top of the report made his chest tighten. It was a military risk assessment signed off on by his father stating that attacking Victoria would be a dangerous escalation of the war that likely would not succeed in doing anything but killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in the dome since the Emperor and the important figures would likely have time to evacuate before the missiles struck. 

“If your father told the council that attacking Victoria wouldn’t result in anything but innocent people dying, then why would they do it?” Annette asked, sounding dismayed. 

Felix frowned and scrolled to the next page. The next page was not a military report, rather, it was a personal proposal drafted in elegant handwriting that Felix recognized. His blood boiled and he clenched his hands on the edge of the console. 

“Bastard,” he swore.

Annette looked from the holo to him. “Felix?”

“This is the motion that was passed by the Security Council to override my father’s recommendation. It was proposed by Andre Gautier,” he snarled. 

Felix turned away from the console, growling under his breath. He rubbed his hand over his face, pacing across the length of the record room. Annette studied the report further before she reached out to touch his arm. 

“Since you sent that comm back to them telling them Dimitri was alive, you haven’t heard from your friends, have you?” 

Felix dropped his hand and took a deep breath. “No,” he admitted. His throat tightened uncomfortably and he looked away from Annette’s pitying green eyes. “If they were political prisoners then the Empire would have no incentive to bring them along in the evacuation.” He closed his eyes, inhaling sharply as he felt tears burn in the corners of his eyes. 

He had cried when Victoria had been destroyed. Losing Sylvain and Ingrid was a sucker punch that Felix wasn’t ready to take. He had already lost almost everything when he had lost his father. Dimitri, his only still-living childhood friend, was off god-knows-where in space while he was stuck here, useless, on Earth as his friends were blown to bits in the Martian capital. 

Arms curled around his waist and Felix’s eyes snapped open. Annette had leaned into him, pulling him into a tight hug and pressing her face against his chest. He stiffened, unsure of how to respond. Annette was a touchy person, he had learned this, but he still wasn’t used to her open acts of affection. 

“What kind of person does that?” she asked quietly, her voice trembling. “How can a parent authorize an attack like this that kills thousands of people including his own son?”

Felix hesitantly brought a hand up to touch Annette’s soft red hair. He brushed his fingers through it lightly and tried to swallow the lump in his throat. Over her head, he looked back at the assault motion. He didn’t have the right words to respond to Annette so he just awkwardly let her hug him for another minute before he knew that they needed to get out of the record room before someone reported unusual usage of Andre Gautier’s Security ID.

* * *

**THEBE, MARS**

Edelgard was staring down a map of Hygiea’s AO when someone knocked on the door behind her. She didn’t turn, smoothing her palms over the edge of the hologram console. 

“Come in.”

“Where’s your shadow?”

Edelgard turned and saw Arundel standing just inside the room, looking around. He looked relaxed, his hands tucked casually in his pockets, but she didn’t miss the small pistol holstered at his hip: a casual reminder that he was always prepared for the worst side of things. 

“Hubert is busy. He has his own work to attend to,” Edelgard replied coolly. “He shouldn’t need to be present for this conversation, should he, _Uncle_?”

Arundel’s lips twitched into a small smile. “Of course not, Your Majesty.” He approached her, glancing at the spinning map around Hygiea. “The MN Nuvelle retreated?”

Edelgard pressed her lips together. She did not want to admit it, but Mars had been thoroughly beaten at Hygiea. They had lost the fight on the station as well as in space, rendering them powerless in the area. The Nuvelle had retreated to protect from further losses after ships from Hygiea’s surface had joined in the fray. It had not yet arrived back on Mars thanks to the damage it had sustained in the fight. 

“Yes,” she agreed finally. “Hygiea has their independence now,” she said sharply. She waved a hand over the hologram and dismissed it, leaving the console blank in front of them. 

“They are an island in a sea of unfriendly faces,” Arundel remarked. “They would not have rebelled if they had truly known what was good for them.”

Edelgard recalled the chilling transmission that had been received by Martian command. Claude von Riegan was officially a pain in her ass not worth keeping around. Hubert was putting out probes on Claude, but it was true that Claude’s spy network was far vaster than she had imagined. He was irritatingly elusive. 

“Ceres,” she said to Arundel. “They rebelled because of Ceres.”

“Don’t lie to either of us, Your Majesty,” he said sharply. “Hygiea has been fighting against Mars for far longer than the fledgling rebellion on Ceres has been brewing. It all would have started under the former Martian government.”

She turned on him, narrowing her eyes. “Let’s not pretend that you didn’t have a hand in that then, shall we?”

He raised an eyebrow at her bold statement, but he did not deny her allegation. “Incite a revolution? For what reason would I want to do that?”

Edelgard lifted her chin and narrowed her eyes. “The same reason you took me to Earth all those years ago, I would guess, though I can’t pretend to know your motivations for that. The same reason that you had been moving your researchers and staff to Victoria. You were bothering my own researchers.”

Arundel smiled cruelly. “Ah, but don’t you see we’re after the same goals? If I had the answers to your gravity sickness, I would surely have presented them to you already, just like I have with my treatment.”

She folded her arms and shut her eyes, envisioning the fire that spread through her veins upon receiving one of Arundel’s so-called treatment injections. “I’m not the same naive child who you manipulated all those years ago,” she said coolly. She opened her eyes and stared him down. “Next time you want to start a war with Earth, remember whose planet you’re on. I assure you, you’ll not find many allies left in places they can help you.”

“You removed Ludwig and the others from power, Edelgard, but look where you are now,” he pointed out. “You’re embroiled in the centre of the deadliest war in Martian history. You’ve lost your capital city and now you’ve lost a colony.” His eyes glittered darkly. “I wonder what your people think of you.”

“So you admit to shooting the UEN Fhirdiad without my permission?”

He looked amused. “Am I being recorded, niece?”

She scowled. “No, this is purely for my own satisfaction.”

Arundel nodded. “Well, in that case, yes. It was under my orders that the very missiles I gave to you to ensure you had a chance in this war were deployed to remove the UEK’s prince from the equation.”  
  
Edelgard exhaled slowly. “And what if we had met up earlier? What if I had been on board the Fhirdiad at the time? I was on my way there to meet with UEK representatives when you fired those missiles.”

“I wouldn’t have fired,” he replied simply. He was lying. Edelgard knew he was, but there was nothing she could do to threaten him as it stood. 

“And why cloaked missiles? It only brings attention to the fact that now we have this technology that Earth doesn’t,” she pointed out. 

She had an idea of why Arundel had pulled the string the way he had to put things in motion, but she needed to be sure. He strode around the circular console casually, admiring it. He didn’t answer right away, running a hand around the edge of it. Edelgard followed him so that they were both slowly pacing around the console, standing on opposite sides of the circle. 

“You’re a smart woman, Your Majesty, surely you have the answers to your own questions?”

She frowned. Her hunch was right. She hated that it was. “It’s so that we need you. Since Earth knows the technology exists and they have every reason to believe we have it and are willing to use it in this war, they’ll be matching us in strength. Therefore, we will be fighting a war we have no chance of winning without your support.”

Arundel smiled again. “Look at you, putting it together on your own.”

Edelgard took a deep breath. “Get out of Thebe,” she said. “Take your researchers and your spies and get out of my city. In fact, don’t even bother trying to find transport to Concordia, or Romulus, or Remus. I want you off my _fucking_ planet.”

He looked a bit surprised. “Is that how you speak to family now, Your Majesty?”

She played her trump card. “You’re not my uncle. Any idiot can see that. Get off my planet and take your tentacled-reach with you.”

Arundel almost looked impressed with her guts now. “Threatening me? When I have control of the missiles still? I didn’t think you’d be so bold.”

“Check again,” she said calmly. 

His eyes narrowed. “What?”

“You said you had control of the missiles. Please, be my guest, and check again.”

Arundel paused, but then he pulled a comm out of his pocket. He tapped a few things on his screen, stared for a moment, and then lowered the comm to the console. “What did you do, Edelgard?” he asked, his voice cold. 

She resisted the urge to smirk. “Bernadetta’s a smart girl. What a shame you keep underestimating her.”

“If you have the codes, I’ll get them back. You know that.”

“Good thing I don’t have them,” she rebuffed. “It’s that simple. You don’t have any power left here, _Uncle_. I would suggest you retreat cleanly while you can.”

“I’m a Martian resident. Surely you don’t intend to eject me into the middle of a warzone with no defence.”

She folded her arms again. “Somehow I’m certain you’ll be able to scrounge up enough protection to get from here to Selene in the same way you always seem to.”

“You do know about that. I was beginning to wonder. Hubert is not always particularly subtle when he is seeking something.”

Edelgard stepped back from the console and extended a hand towards the door, offering Arundel a clean path to the exit. 

“I don’t know what kinds of strings you think you have been pulling here, but consider them cut. Keep your Earthen puppets and your old Martian friends, but you will leave my government and my planet alone. Hubert and I will see to that. If you go after a hair on Bernadetta’s head or an eyelash of Linhardt’s, I will know. I will know, and I will come after you.”

Arundel walked slowly around the table, making his way to the open exit she had left him. “You would do well to be careful, Your Majesty. After all, it’s my people that have the treatment for your particular brand of gravity sickness, isn’t that right?”

She flattened her expression and didn’t move. “I think I’ll take my chances without you.” 

“You won’t live long enough to see the truth of the world, you know,” he pointed out calmly. 

“If it has anything to do with the work that your organization does on Selene, then I don’t want any part in it.” She fixed him with her coldest, nastiest stare and he retreated another step. Victory. She inclined her chin again and smiled. “ _Goodbye, Uncle._ ”


	17. Seventeen - Tactics

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ingrid spirals. Claude schemes. Dorothea pushes back.

Seventeen - Tactics

* * *

**THEBE, MARS**

Ingrid stared out the windows over the dusty red streets of Thebe. Every tense nerve she had had in Victoria was amplified and on high alert. She felt like crawling out of her skin and fighting every stupid Martian sailor that tried to get in her way on her way off the planet. She crossed her arms and dug her fingernails into the skin until it hurt and she exhaled deeply. 

She couldn’t run. There was nowhere to go and they would shoot her without hesitation. They were watching them, anyways. The camera in Victoria had been small and hidden with large blind spots that Ingrid and Sylvain had learned to exploit well. The camera in Thebe was a black box on the ceiling in the centre of the room that, as far as Ingrid had determined, covered the entire room and even had a line of sight into the bathroom. Technically, they could just close the bathroom door, but Sylvain had been pretty certain that there was at least one listening device in the bathroom, even without a camera. 

Sylvain was sitting on the bed in the room, running his hands through his hair. They hadn’t said much to each other since Dorothea’s last visit where he had snapped. She had interfered, protecting the Martian spy from him, mostly out of instinct. They were both still shocked by the revelations that they had been given recently. 

_Dimitri was alive_. Dimitri was alive and he had been in contact with Rodrigue and Felix. Since the moment she had learned Dimitri was going on the Fhirdiad mission, she had not stopped thinking about all the things that could have gone wrong. Then Felix was recovered from the wreckage site and Dimitri was presumed dead and she and Sylvain were shipped off to imprisonment on Mars. 

To make things worse, Vesta was gone. Destroyed by Mars in a petty strike against an innocent colony. Then Victoria. Earth’s retaliatory strike that, all things considered, should have killed Sylvain and Ingrid. They had only been evacuated because of Dorothea who had taken it upon herself to fetch them. 

Nothing about the strike on Victoria sat well with Ingrid. Edelgard herself had paid them a visit to deliver the UEK Security Council’s verdict. Sylvain’s father had voted in favour of the Victoria strike. Sylvain’s father had voted for a motion that should have killed him. Ingrid couldn’t imagine what he was feeling. 

From the conversations that they had shared when Sylvain was heavy with delirium from the poisoning and after he was recovering, Ingrid had begun to see the truth of Sylvain’s relationship with his father. The words he had said to her back on the shuttle wouldn’t get out of her mind either. Sylvain was suspicious of his father and she didn’t know how to reassure him. She didn’t know if she could. 

Sylvain had been the one to put the pieces together on the second piece of news that had come from Edelgard. Admiral Irebrand was a name that Ingrid did not recognize. There was only ever one sitting Admiral on the Security Council, Sylvain reminded her, and it had been enough to get her to realize something else: Rodrigue was dead too. 

Her heart ached for Felix, alone on Earth while his family was dead and his friends were scattered through space in horrible situations. 

“Ingrid,” Sylvain called. 

She turned towards him, dropping her arms down. He was standing next to the bed, staring at her. She pressed her lips together as he approached her. She expected him to stop in front of her, but instead, he kept going until her head bumped against his shoulder and he wrapped his arms around her tightly. Ingrid’s arms were trapped between their bodies as she stood, startled, in Sylvain’s embrace. 

His head dipped down so that his breath tickled her ear. “The light on the camera, Ingrid, is it green or orange?”

She tensed and let her gaze dart up to the ever-watching camera. The light on the front of it was orange. “Orange,” she whispered back to him. 

Sylvain loosened his arms around her and stepped away, keeping his back to the camera. “Now?”

The light was green. 

“Green.”

“Privacy filter,” he breathed quietly. “They don’t register video during,” he winced, “intimacy.”

Ingrid stared at Sylvain. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

The edge of his lips quirked up. “I’ve seen them before, but I had to be sure.”

“What does that mean?” she asked. 

He stepped closer to her. Ingrid’s gaze flashed to the camera unintentionally. The light stayed green. Sylvain’s hands cupped her waist. Green. He leaned down, his lips grazing the side of her face so gently that Ingrid felt like she was going to break. Orange. 

“It means if they think we’re doing something stupid, they’re not watching,” he breathed quietly. 

His breath trailed over the path of her jaw and she shivered against his touch unintentionally. Sylvain didn’t seem to notice, staying far too close to her for her sanity. A long time ago, before Glenn and before the Navy and before everything else, Ingrid had imagined this moment. This was not the time or place she had thought about for it. 

She turned her face to Sylvain’s so their lips were just a hair apart. “If they’re not watching, then we’re talking,” she said. 

“Yes,” he replied. The movement of his lips around the word nearly caused them to brush against hers. 

Ingrid curled a hand in the fabric of Sylvain’s t-shirt and pushed him back to the bed. “There are easier places to sit.”

He walked backwards with her until he sat on the edge of the bed. Ingrid pushed him back by the shoulders and he shifted, crawling backwards until he was resting against the bed’s headboard. Ingrid followed him, keeping her back to the camera. 

“What colour?”

“Green.”

She took a deep breath and pushed Sylvain’s knees down, sliding a leg over him. She shifted so that she was practically sitting on top of him. Sylvain’s hands braced her hips so that she was stable on him. Her cheeks flushed, but she leaned towards him. 

“What colour?” she asked again. 

“Orange,” he replied quietly. 

“Okay,” she said. “Do you trust Dorothea?”

“I do,” he admitted. One of his hands slid to her back and stroked a line over her spine. 

“Do you think Dimitri’s alive?”

Sylvain’s lips curled into a small, hopeful smile. “I do.”

“Do you believe that your father authorized the strike on Victoria?”

Sylvain’s smile dropped, but he didn’t tear his eyes from her. “I do.”

Looking down at him, sitting on top of him, Ingrid felt a tug in her chest. His brown eyes were sad and reserved and she missed the playful glint they had used to carry back on Earth before all of this. 

“Your father is an asshole,” she said.

Sylvain chuckled. “Yes. A traitorous, backstabbing, selfish son of a bitch.” He thumbed her waist idly and shifted, tugging her closer. “Orange,” he said quietly. “Do you believe that Mars didn’t blow up the Fhirdiad?”

“Why take the Earthen ambassador if they did?” she replied. “If their Emperor was on the way to meet with Dimitri, then they would have no reason to blow it up. Maybe we could have avoided a war.”

“My father knew something about the plans for the Mars trip, I know that, but I don’t think he had anything to do with the Fhirdiad. He voted against Dimitri going up there. He didn’t want him up there.”

Ingrid leaned down so that their faces were barely apart again. “Cornelia,” she said simply. “She voted yes and she has always hated Felix’s father.”

Sylvain’s hand rubbed against her back. “Add in her connection to Selene and my father,” he said. 

Ingrid frowned. “She’s the damn Secretary-General of the UEK Security Council. Why start a war with Mars?”

“Maybe she didn’t want a war. Maybe she just wanted Dimitri out of the way,” Sylvain offered. 

Ingrid bit her lip. “I suppose the war started after we arrived here, didn’t it?”

“Yes,” Sylvain replied. His gaze flickered above her to the camera.

Somehow, he kept his expression clear, but he immediately shifted his hands to her waist and rolled them over. Ingrid, startled, rolled like a limp doll and found herself easily pinned below Sylvain. One of his hands cupped the back of her leg, pulling it over his hip and he leaned his face into the crook of her neck. He didn’t do anything else there except breathe on her gently. 

“Sorry,” he breathed. “Green light. What colour is it now?”

Ingrid tipped her head back by reflex and noted the orange blinking light in the camera. “Orange,” she replied. 

Sylvain nodded. He lowered her leg, dropping them into a slightly less intimate position. Ingrid was suddenly embarrassed. She hadn’t thought much of her personal experiences recently, having been much more focused on her career, but here, with Sylvain, it was hard not to think about it. 

The last person she had been with was Glenn. She had just gotten over seeing Glenn every time she looked at Felix. She didn’t need those fluttery feelings to come up every time she saw Sylvain now because he reminded her of Glenn too. Especially with the situation that they were stuck in at that moment. 

A quiet voice in her head cut in, asking herself if she really saw Glenn in Sylvain, or if she just saw Sylvain. That was almost a scarier though. 

* * *

**SPACESHIP DERDRIU, OUTER COLONIES**

“Claude!”

Claude knew who was calling his name without even turning around. He took a deep breath and turned to face the UEK prince, smiling broadly. 

“Ah, Your Highness, you managed to track me down.” He kept his voice light and almost playful, but the UEK prince frowned. 

The prince had cleaned up since coming aboard the Derdriu, tying back his now almost shaggy hair, and dressing in a UEK Navy suit. His companion, the mysterious one-woman crew of the Seiros, had stayed in the suit for her own ship and had almost hardly left the ship’s side since it was docked on the Derdriu so that repairs and systems operations could be run. 

Claude hadn’t seen a lot of the prince since he had come aboard. Mostly the man had been spending time with Dedue and Ashe, the two Earthens that had brought the news of Hygiea. From his own bit of nosing around, Claude had learned that Dedue was, as he had expected, some kind of friend-bodyguard hybrid. 

“What news do you have of Earth?” the prince asked. 

Claude tapped his chin once. “Well, not to repeat everything you’ve already been caught up on, Your Highness, but a UEMC Sergeant was recovered from the wreckage of your ship, another was taken prisoner with the ambassador on Mars, one of the council members was assassinated and swiftly replaced, Earth destroyed a research station on Enceladus and then Mars retaliated by destroying Earthen colony Vesta and then Earth destroyed Victoria. That’s pretty much it.”

The prince frowned. “I meant in your efforts to reach Earth.” He paused. “And please, call me Dimitri. I do not wish to be higher than anyone here.”

Claude’s lips twitched into an amused smirk. “Well, Dimitri, considering that this ship is the flagship of the Alliance Navy, you’re certainly not in a place that you have the authority to be making requests like you are.” 

Dimitri sighed. “Claude, please, the transmissions?”

Claude shook his head. “Dimitri, I understand your urgency, but if I open communications with Earth there are a few possibilities. One, your Security Council takes the opportunity of my presence to shoot us down, ending all of this right here. Two, Mars could intercept and do the same thing. Three, I inflame Mars further and they drag my still very fragile Alliance into a fight we haven’t a hope of winning.”

Dimitri rubbed a hand over his face. “Felix has already informed me that Earth does not have the stealth tech to have taken out the Fhirdiad. Therefore, I can at least alleviate your concerns about the first happening since I’m assuming this ship is still equipped with its former UEN defences. That would be enough to defend the ship from any launches made by Earth since they would be uncloaked and trackable using the former UEN software still installed in this ship.”

Claude studied the prince. He seemed to have taken the fact that the Derdriu was a repossessed UEN ship remarkably well. Additionally, he hadn’t even made a single derogatory colonist comment, which was certainly a change from what Claude had been expecting, given his government’s response to the Colony rebellions. 

Since the liberation of Hygiea, Holst had confirmed that Ganymede was officially and mostly peacefully under the Alliance’s control, but Pallas, Io, and Callisto were still disputed territories. Lorenz had wisely advised Claude to handle the Martian Colonies carefully since it was likely that they would be more intensely guarded with everything that had happened. 

Of course, since then, Earth had destroyed Victoria and a large part of the Martian Navy, so now the Alliance was moving ahead with plans to liberate the last two Martian Colonies. Hilda and her boy-toy Caspar, who had led the ground teams on Hygiea, were leading that effort with Judith, Raphael, and Leonie. 

“If we want to stop this war, then this is our only chance,” Dimitri said, pressing the point. 

Claude folded his arms and raised an eyebrow. “And who said that I’m interested in stopping this war? So far the chaos it has created has been beneficial for my party.”

Dimitri’s expression didn’t waver and Claude knew his gambit had failed. “You wouldn’t even be entertaining me if that’s the case. While it has certainly provided you with the fodder you needed for your revolution, you never intended to lead this revolution in the middle of a war. I tracked your progress on Ceres myself."

Claude paused, studying the prince again. He held himself in a way that was both confident and uneasy. No doubt he wasn’t used to being at someone else’s mercy. It kind of came with the territory of being a guest on a foreign ship in space, but it likely wasn’t a common feeling for a blood-born prince. 

“Lysithea is working on your transmission,” Claude admitted finally. “She says it will take a few more days until it is ready, but even then we cannot confirm it won’t be intercepted and that everything won’t go horribly wrong.”

“You’re sending it to Sergeant Fraldarius?”

“Yes, the man you recommended.” Claude paused. “You trust him?”

“With my life,” Dimitri assured. “His brother and father both served and were loyal friends of my father and myself. His brother died in the Eros Massacre and his father was killed recently.”

“Alright,” Claude agreed. “Now, Your Highness, since I answered your questions, perhaps you can answer one of my own.”

Dimitri’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t outright shoot Claude down, which was more than he was expecting. 

“The woman we found you with, who is she?”

Dimitri blinked like he had expected the question to be about internal UEK politics and was surprised to get such a mundane answer. “Her name is Byleth,” he replied. 

Claude rolled his eyes. “I was informed as much. I meant more along the lines of how does she end up on a former UEN ship as the only passenger.”

“Why don’t you ask me yourself?” 

Claude and Dimitri both turned to see Byleth standing there, her hair pulled up in a ponytail and a small smudge of grease on one cheekbone. The Seiros jumpsuit was unzipped to her waist with the arms tied around her hips like a belt. She wore a tank top underneath with her arms crossed and a curious, but not accusatory look on her face. Claude hadn’t even heard her approach. 

He held his hands up in a placating manner as Byleth approached, moving to stand next to Dimitri. “Alright, Miss Byleth, how did you end up on that ship alone?”

“My father was born on Earth, took the ship and the crew when I was just a child and took us dark. When he died, I gave the crew the option to stay or leave and they all chose to leave rather than stay with me on that dying hunk of metal,” she answered simply. 

Claude considered her story. “Jeralt Eisner,” he said after a second. 

Byleth stared at him, surprise flickering across her usually composed expression. “What did you just say?”

Claude rubbed a hand on the bottom of his face. “She told me that everyone on her crew scattered and I guess that wasn’t a lie.”

“What?”

“Was there another kid with you on the Seiros originally?”

Byleth’s lips parted in surprise. “No, not full time, but there was a girl who was around occasionally. Her father sailed with us, but her mother didn’t. She lived on Earth.”

“Any chance you happen to know if that girl defected from the UEN a few years back?” Claude continued. 

Byleth stared at him. “Leonie,” she breathed. “You know her?”

He smirked. “She’s on Ganymede with some others preparing to capture Callisto.”

Dimitri looked between Byleth and Claude. “What?”

Byleth tugged on the end of her ponytail, her brow creasing. “A girl who used to sail with my father and I is a part of the Alliance apparently,” she muttered. 

Claude smiled. “Now that that connection is established, I have another question.”

Byleth looked suspicious of him now and he didn’t blame her. Dimitri’s own suspicions seemed to have risen to match Byleth’s. For a woman he had only met a few weeks ago, he was oddly protective and in tuned with her. 

“It’s for either of you,” Claude prefaced. “Do you know anything about Selene?”

Dimitri frowned outright. “Selene? Earth’s moon?”

“Specifically, what is happening with Selene and your Security Council,” Claude clarified.

Dimitri’s frown deepened. “What?”

Claude pulled out his comm and pulled up a projection. It was a small icon indicating each seat on the Security Council and a red line that connected them all to a bubble in the centre that said “Selene”. He waved to Cornelia’s name. 

“Your Secretary-General funds several projects on Selene. The sitting Admiral is a pawn in her pocket, though I’m sure you already knew that. Gwendal Rowe received a lovely stipend from a Selene-based manufacturing firm last month. Andre Gautier also seems highly interested in funnelling his personal funds into projects taking place on Selene. Your previous sitting Admiral was killed using, according to my investigations, Selene-crafted ammunition,” Claude summarized. “These four are also the four who voted in favour of destroying Victoria.”

“There is nothing on Selene besides a few research stations that report all findings and developments to the UEK’s development sector,” Dimitri said, his brow furrowing as he studied Claude’s diagram. 

Claude looked at Byleth. She seemed much more conflicted than Dimitri did over the news of something fishy happening on Selene. It was the reaction that he was expecting. 

“Tell me, Claude, since you seem to know so much about hiding and sneaking, is it possible to hide a station on Selene?”

Claude considered her question. “Without the UEK knowing? No, definitely not. However, if you have 3 or 4 members of the Security Council in your pocket and no pesky UEK Prince to veto their decisions? Then, yes, I would say it is quite possible.”

* * *

**THEBE, MARS**

Dorothea grabbed Ferdinand’s arm before he could walk into the meeting room, dragging him to a stop. She dropped her voice low. 

“What’s this about?” she asked. 

Ferdinand tensed when she grabbed him, but he tilts his head down, leaning closer to her. “Bernie found something, apparently, plus I’m assuming you know that Arundel left.”

Dorothea nodded. “Is she finally going to explain that to us?”

“I would assume so,” Ferdinand affirmed. 

He straightened up and offered her his arm politely. Dorothea rolled her eyes but she slid her arm through his, allowing him to guide them into the meeting room. Edelgard was pacing on the far side of the room, Hubert at her side. Bernadetta was seated in one of the chairs, nervously fidgeting with her comm on the table. Linhardt was seated next to her, looking absolutely exhausted. He did raise an eyebrow at Dorothea and Ferdinand as they entered together and Dorothea reflexively tugged her arm free from Ferdinand. 

Hubert turned towards them as they entered and nodded to them. Dorothea couldn’t get a read on Hubert’s expression, so she just smiled back tightly and took the seat next to Linhardt. Ferdinand remained standing for a moment longer before he eventually took his seat as well, sliding into the seat between Bernie and the head of the table. 

Finally, Edelgard stopped pacing when she noticed that everyone had arrived. She turned towards the table and Dorothea immediately noticed how tired she looked. Her eyes were exhausted and she had poorly concealed dark circles around them. She held herself upright in a picture of perfect posture, but Dorothea could read the tension in her limbs. 

“Thank you for coming,” Edelgard said. 

Hubert pulled out Edelgard’s chair and she sat down slowly. Sitting, Edelgard looked even smaller than she normally was and years younger than 25. Sympathy washed over Dorothea and she pinched her lips so that she didn’t frown. 

“Bernadetta,” Hubert said. “Would you please show the others what you brought to me yesterday?”

“Right!” Bernie said nervously. She pulled up something on her comm and then flicked it onto the central holo. 

Dorothea eyed the sprawling code as it crawled across the screen. Transmissions and that sort of thing were not her specialty. Dorothea specialized in people so she focused her attention on Linhardt’s face, since he might have a better idea of what all of this meant than she did. Sure enough, his brows twitched into a frown as he studied the data. 

“I saw this comm coming from Ceres orbit yesterday, so I flagged it just in case,” Bernie explained. “I didn’t want to hijack it in case the person who sent it was watching for that, but I did tap its transmitter and the intended recipient.” 

“Ceres orbit?” Dorothea questioned. “Is it from the Alliance?”

“Given that it seems to have been sent from their flagship, the Derdriu, that does seem to be the case,” Hubert agreed. “The transmission was equipped with counter-tracking measures as well.”

“Fortunately, I’ve been working on breaking those down,” Bernie chimed in. 

“Who would have access to our own counter-tracking measures?” Ferdinand asked, frowning. 

Linhardt stood up abruptly. “Am I needed?” he asked shortly, looking mildly annoyed. 

“Sit down,” Edelgard said calmly, still studying the transmission. “We knew it was a possibility from the moment he left that he would go to the Alliance. Earth never would have kept him alive, but Claude? Claude would have heard him out.”

Dorothea sighed. “So Caspar not only takes a bunch of our ship manifests and flight charts but also our counter-tracking measures and defects to the Alliance who have just recently succeeded in liberating Hygiea, one of our colonies.” She cast Linhardt a nervous glance. “That certainly seemed to indicate that his defection was premeditated.”

Linhardt crossed his arms. “We had already established that, had we not?”

Edelgard frowned. “At least now we can confirm where he went.”

Hubert waved a hand, moving the conversation along. “Anyway, if we can move on,” he said dryly. “Bernadetta determined that the transmission was sent from the Derdriu to Earth.”

Ferdinand straightened in his chair. “Earth? The Alliance is communicating with Earth? Surely the UEK is as annoyed with them as we are since they have taken Ceres and Ganymede, right?”

Edelgard sighed. “At this point, I think it’s unlikely. If anything, I might even assume that Ganymede is a concession made by the UEK in order to secure the Alliance’s assistance in the war.”

“So you’re saying that the Alliance has joined the war?” Dorothea asked. “Doesn’t that go against the initial platform they were pushing for? They wanted neutrality and freedom for the Colonies, not to enter a war that they are severely out-gunned in.”

Hubert zoomed in on a part of Bernadetta’s comm. The recipient flared up and Dorothea read the intended recipient location: New York City. She folded her arms. It certainly didn’t seem to speak in favour of a neutral Alliance if they were sending transmissions directly to the UEK Capital. 

“Do you have the exact intended recipient?” Ferdinand asked, leaning forward

Bernadetta shook her head. “Like I said, I’m still working on the breakdown of the counter-tracking software. It’s not perfect so I couldn’t track the exact recipient, just the general location that it pinged on Earth.”

“Keep working on it, please,” Edelgard requested. “I would like for you to glean as much information from this as possible. And keep an eye on the Derdriu if you can track it. I want to know what Claude is doing and if he’s going to continue communicating with Earth.”

Bernadetta nodded and recalled her comm from the holo, tapping something out on her screen. Dorothea studied Edelgard. The Emperor was projecting a calm, neutral image, but Dorothea could practically see the frustration simmering beneath her skin that was paired with her tiredness. She stood up. 

“If that’s everything, we’ll leave you to rest, Your Majesty,” Dorothea said shortly. She brushed her hands over her slacks and met Hubert’s gaze, challenging him to argue against her dismissal of the room. 

His eyebrow twitched, but he didn’t argue, just rising to his feet from his seat and waiting for the group to clear out. Linhardt left the quickest, moving faster than Dorothea had seen him move since they were in Victoria at least. Bernadetta hesitated for a moment, glancing between Hubert and the comm in her hand, but then she scurried away, probably off to get back to work. 

Ferdinand stood stiffly. His expression was something that was probably supposed to be neutral, but Dorothea could read the edges of distrust in it. She gently grabbed his arm and tugged him towards the door, breaking him out of a staring contest with Hubert. As soon as they were outside the room, Dorothea clamped a hand over Ferdinand’s mouth and pressed him against the alcove by the door. 

His eyes blew wide and she tapped her free hand in a shushing movement over her own lips, tilting her head back towards the door. It was faint, but they could just barely pick up Edelgard and Hubert’s voices through the door. Ferdinand tensed, but he did not say anything so Dorothea lowered her hand from his mouth. 

“He’s gone?” Edelgard asked. 

“Yes,” Hubert said. “Arundel and his minions have been removed from Mars. Last I checked they were en route to Deimos to wrap up operations there.”

“I want them gone from my damn moon,” Edelgard grumbled in response. “The weapons tests he wants to perform are going to get someone killed or he’s going to do something as monumentally stupid as blowing up the UEK Prince again.”

Dorothea’s brows shot up. Arundel had tried to kill Prince Dimitri? By the look of surprise on Ferdinand’s face, he hadn’t been expecting that either. She curled her hand into the front of Ferdinand’s jacket to keep from fidgeting and making noise and he stole the briefest glance at where she was crumpling his nicely pressed uniform but didn’t say anything. 

“I want all of the operations on Deimos shut down immediately,” Edelgard continued. “Give him no reason to have any purpose to stay. Make him turn tail and flee back to his protectors on Selene and whine about how his influence on Mars is gone.”

Dorothea mouthed the name of Earth’s moon in surprise. Ferdinand was frowning now and she knew it was because of his own father’s surprising connection to Selene that not even the Earthens had been able to clarify for him since Selene was apparently just a cluster of small, private research stations. 

Dorothea, using her grip on Ferdinand’s jacket, dragged him away from the door until she deemed they were out of earshot should the doors open and Hubert or Edelgard emerge. She kept her voice low. 

“What’s going on on Deimos?” she hissed. 

Ferdinand shook his head. “Hubert blocks me at every attempt I make to figure it out. Shouldn’t you be able to find out with Intelligence?”

She frowned. “No, I don’t have clearance for that.” Ferdinand opened his mouth to say something but hesitated. She narrowed her eyes. “What?”

“If you want to know what’s happening on Deimos, let’s just go to Deimos,” he suggested. 

She stared at him for a moment. “Deimos? Ferdie, neither of us are pilots.”

“I can fly a ship,” he argued. “I had to in order to get my Captain’s rank,” he reminded. 

She pursed her lips. “Hubert will kill the ambassador and the UEMC soldier as soon as I leave,” she said quietly. “I’m the only reason that he hasn’t killed them so far.”

Ferdinand took a deep, bracing breath. “Then we bring them with us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's one for the sylvgrids <3
> 
> _nobody is ready for chapter 18_


	18. Eighteen - Discoveries, Delusions, and Deception

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Council takes action.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another Saturday update? Yes because I'm super busy tomorrow and this was sitting completed and waiting to get posted. I'm on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/nicolewrites37) and I might have made a cover for this fic if you're interested in popping over there and checking it out.

Eighteen - Discoveries, Delusions, and Deceptions

* * *

**SPACESHIP DERDRIU, OUTER COLONIES**

Dimitri tapped the comm against his leg as he paced the bridge. He had just finished playing Felix’s reply to Claude and the rest of the major players in the Alliance. According to his friend, Cornelia had not only blown up Enceladus but now also Victoria, the central and largest dome on Mars. 

It was completely unnerving for Dimitri to think about the fact that his government was in Cornelia’s hands while he was stuck up in space while she killed possibly millions of people in a war that he wanted to stop. Reports on the damages done to Victoria were still coming in so it was unknown the true extent of the damage done. 

The selfish part of Dimitri was worried because Sylvain and Ingrid were on Mars. He was terrified that they wouldn’t have been evacuated from Victoria and that they would have died in the explosion. He was also furious because, according to Felix, Andre Gautier had not only voted in favour of the motion but also personally authorized the UEN to bomb Victoria regardless of the potential that Sylvain, his own son, would be present. 

“So now not only do we have to contend with a furious Mars, but your Security Council seems intent on escalating this war to new heights,” Claude said dryly. 

Dimitri frowned and stopped pacing, staring at the leader of the Alliance. “I need a public comm,” he said. “The messages to Felix are a good start, but I need something bigger to get the attention of the Council to get them to back down."

“No,” the young woman with white hair, Lysithea, said immediately. “If I try to transmit a larger frequency it will go through Martian space and we’ll be blown to bits before it reaches Earth.”

“She’s right, Your Highness,” Ashe said. “It was hard enough to hide this transmission even with Mars’s own counter-tracking measures equipped.”

Claude ran a hand through his hair and then drummed his fingers over the central console on the Derdriu’s bridge. “What about Selene or one of the other colonies?”

“I wouldn’t recommend that,” Caspar chimed in. “I know that Hubert has an eye on Selene already because there were some weird comms between Mars and Selene at the start of the war. Plus, they’re on alert with the Colonies already. Pallas would be your best bet, but,” he trailed off, gesturing to the muted video transmission playing. 

Pallas, the once staunchly pro-Earth colony, had liberated themselves. It hadn’t been pretty and the violence nearly made Dimitri ill, but thankfully the UEK had bigger issues to deal with so they hadn’t retaliated. 

“Can we do anything?” Dimitri asked. 

“Send another message to Felix,” Dedue suggested quietly. “Make it a formal statement and have him play it for the Council. That way it’s easier to send and we know he’ll at least try to play it for them.”

Dimitri glanced at his friend. Dedue had a point and his suggestion seemed amicable with everyone on the bridge. Dimitri’s eyes darted around the area as he took in the Alliance members, the Martian defector, as well as Ashe, Dedue, and the Colonist woman, Mercedes, that they had reached the Derdriu with. 

He didn’t realize he was looking for Byleth until he couldn’t find her. 

“Alright,” Dimitri agreed, straightening up. “Is that agreeable?”

“Yes,” Claude said. “Lysithea can get to work on that while we make other arrangements. I want coordination between Callisto and Io today.” The Alliance leader’s gaze flickered over Dimitri. “Your Highness, I’m sure you would understand if I asked you to leave us to our business.”

Dimitri nodded shortly and turned to walk away, deciding to look for Byleth. Her opinion had become incredibly important to him. Dimitri departed the bridge and realized after a moment that Dedue had fallen into step behind him, accompanying him. 

“You do not have to shadow me here, Dedue,” Dimitri said kindly. “I know you have made acquaintances. You are welcome to stay with them.” 

Dedue shook his head. “No, Your Highness, my place is with you. Besides, I find I am not much of a tactician and I am not even all that useful as a soldier the way things stand.”

Dimitri turned and studied Dedue. His friend’s arm was still in a sling thanks to a wound he had apparently received during the attack on Hygiea. Dedue had assured Dimitri that he was well looked after thanks to the Alliance’s medics, though Dimitri had only seen Mercedes actually look at it. Regardless, he took his friend’s word for it. 

“Have I made the right choice in aligning with the Alliance?” Dimitri asked after a moment. 

Dedue pondered the question for a moment. “Having spent some time both with the Alliance central as well as many of Colonists, I think you have. Claude is an intelligent man with a good plan.”

Dimitri nodded, feeling reassured. “I suppose maybe it is time that the Colonies were free anyway,” he admitted. “I wonder what my father would have said about all of this.”

“There is no point dwelling on things you cannot know,” Dedue replied calmly. 

Dimitri laughed. “No, I suppose there isn’t, is there.” He paused. “I am going to look for Byleth,” he said, finally putting a name on the destination he had already been walking to. “I’m sure she is at the Seiros if you would like to come and see the ship.”

“That is the mysterious ship that shows up as a neutral body, correct?”

“Yes,” Dimitri smiled, “and it has real, functioning green panels.”

Dedue laughed at that. “How fascinating, but,” he paused, checking something on his comm, “I believe I have a conversation with Petra that I told Ashe I would join him for.”

Dimitri nodded. “Of course, Dedue. Please pass on my regards.”

Dedue nodded and gave Dimitri one last short bow. He was gone before Dimitri could tell him off for the excess formality. He shook his head fondly and continued on his way to the lower deck of the Derdriu which had access to the Sothis. He got a few strange looks from Alliance sailors on the way down, but he was learning to just ignore the stares and continue as normal. 

When he reached the lower dock he was nearly bowled over by a large man dressed in the Alliance colours. Dimitri staggered back, nearly toppling over, but he managed to steady himself. The man who nearly ran him over skidded to a stop. 

“Sorry!” he helped in a deep, warm voice. “Late for a meeting!”

He was off in a flash and Dimitri wondered idly if that had been Raphael, one of Claude’s inner circle who had been absent from the meeting. He shrugged off the encounter and scanned the bay for Byleth. The Seiros was parked on the far side of the bay and it was bustling with Alliance mechanics who were working to repair the damaged ship. 

As he approached, he saw Byleth sitting on a crate near the ship, chatting with a man he didn’t recognize. Dimitri headed towards them and the man noticed him coming first. He straightened up into a jerky salute and one of Dimitri’s eyebrows shot up. 

“Greetings, Your Highness! Nothing to report!”

Byleth turned, looking over her shoulder to look at Dimitri. The soldier took Dimitri’s distraction as an advantage and disappeared to somewhere else, leaving Dimitri and Byleth alone. Dimitri stared after the retreating sailor. 

“What was that about?” he asked Byleth. 

She shrugged, smiling. “I think he said he used to be a UEN sailor. It was probably more instinct than anything even though you technically have no power on this ship.”

Dimitri laughed and ran a hand through his hair. “Right, I suppose that’s true.”

She smiled at him for another second before her gaze darted back to her ship. “Are you here to ask me why I didn’t come to the meeting?”

“I guess that was kind of my intention,” he admitted. 

Byleth laughed lightly. “I’m not a politician. I’m just a girl who wants to see her ship fixed,” she said, waving a hand towards the under-repair Seiros. “My political opinion shouldn’t hold any sway.”

“Your opinion matters to me,” Dimitri said before he could stop himself. She turned, blinking wide blue eyes at him and he pressed forward. “I have come to think of you as a close friend after everything you did for me. So, forgive me, but your opinion has come to mean a great deal to me.”

Byleth’s eyes softened. She slid over on the box she was perched on and patted the spot next to her. “Thank you, Dimitri.”

Hearing his name, not his title was strange in her voice, but he liked the way that it sounded. He rounded the box and sat next to her and stared up at the ship. There were a lot of physical repairs underway, but the ship was still fairly beat up. He wondered if Byleth had asked for help with trying to restart Sothis since he knew that she had not had any luck doing so on her own. 

“I heard that all the members of the Emperor’s inner circle were evacuated to Thebe,” Byleth said after a moment. “Some sailors were talking about it down here. I think the news just came in from an Alliance post on Io.”

Dimitri nodded. He had heard as much from Claude. He could now only wonder if Edelgard had dragged Sylvain and Ingrid with her allies or if she had left them to die in Victoria. 

“I think,” he said quietly, “that my own government has reasons to engage in this war.”

“Is this about what Claude said about Selene and the Security Council?”

“Yes, and also some of what I have heard from Felix. Felix has proved that the stealth tech used to destroy the Fhirdiad was not built on Earth, but I can’t help but wonder if perhaps it came from Selene.”

Byleth touched his wrist gently, sliding her fingers over the inside of it and Dimitri rotated his hand so that he could hold her hand loosely. 

“What are you thinking?”

“I am thinking that Cornelia has wanted a war since she first came to power. I think, with the right toolset, she is exactly the kind of person to have taken down the Fhirdiad and that she is the last person I want to leave in charge of my planet.”

* * *

**THEBE, MARS**

Ingrid had been acting weirdly since their little chat about the camera and its privacy filter. Sylvain himself still felt on edge about the whole thing, but he hadn’t withdrawn as Ingrid had. His own feelings were more related to how easy it had felt to hold Ingrid and pretend that he was just a stupid teenager again who didn’t have the weight of a war hanging over his head. 

Sylvain couldn’t stop thinking about his father either. 

His father who had, apparently, been the turning vote in the UEK Security Council’s choice to bomb Victoria. Sylvain should have died in the explosion in Victoria and now all he could think about was the clinging suspicion he carried about his father’s actions leading up to the war.

Sylvain had known for years that his father was kind of a terrible person, but he had hoped that he had been wrong. He had hoped that his father wouldn’t have been the type to be a traitorous, backstabbing asshole. Apparently, Sylvain’s original read on his father after the Miklan situation was actually the correct read in the first place. 

Still, Sylvain had held out hope. 

Ingrid hadn’t seemed entirely surprised when he had revealed the truth of his suspicions to her, but Sylvain knew it wasn’t too surprising, especially since Ingrid had her own suspicions that Cornelia had actually been the one to try to take down Dimitri. 

Sylvain turned and watched from the chair by the window as Ingrid methodically braided her hair. She was seated on the bed, weaving the golden strands of her hair into a neat plait. Sylvain knew where the habit had come from. A ponytail didn’t fit under the helmet of her power armour, so she had picked up braiding before joining the Marines to prove to the boy’s club that she was serious about her position. 

He had always admired that about Ingrid. She was so dedicated and hard-working that it had always been hard to not take her seriously. Maybe that’s what had made her feel weird about the whole show-for-the-cameras thing. She had been all business about it, but Sylvain had taken the opportunity to remind himself why he was grateful to have Ingrid here with him instead of being alone. 

“Sylvain,” she called to him, turning so that she caught him staring. 

He blinked. “Yes?”

She wiggled her elbow awkwardly. “Can you tell me if this looks even?”

Sylvain walked over to her immediately and sat on the bed behind her, staring at the braid she had constructed. It was neat and orderly, as it always was when she braided it. Sylvain poked a finger into it, loosening one loop to give it one tiny imperfection. 

“Perfect,” he said quietly. 

She turned to face him, smiling faintly. “Thanks.” 

“Ingrid,” Sylvain started slowly, gently touching her thigh. She tensed, but she didn’t pull away. “Are you okay?”

She tucked her leg up, twisting so that she was facing him and sitting over her foot. “Fine,” she said. 

Sylvain lifted his hand up carefully and slowly, giving her plenty of time to stop him, but she didn’t move so he gently cupped her face. He stared into her green eyes trying to read her to see if she was telling him the truth or not. 

“You don’t have to be,” he said quietly. “I’m not.”

Ingrid caught his hand before he could pull it away and just held it between them, her thumb rubbing over the back of his hand. 

“Sylvain,” she said quietly, “I am glad it’s you.”

He wasn’t sure what that meant. Was she glad to be trapped here on Mars with him? Was she glad she was trapped with him instead of his father? Him instead of Felix? Him instead of alone? Was her comment about something else entirely?

Before he could voice any of these thoughts, the camera in the room caught his attention. The light on it was off which meant that the camera was off. Sylvain dropped Ingrid’s hand abruptly and sprang to his feet, staring at it in confusion. 

The blind confusion didn’t last long as the doors on the far side of the suite hissed open. Ingrid stood up too and they watched together as Dorothea, the spy, and her Navy Captain friend whose name Sylvain still didn’t know besides the sewn “von Aegir” name tag on his uniform. Sylvain narrowed his eyes when he saw that Dorothea was dragging a large, heavy metal box on wheels behind her. 

Ingrid gasped. “What is that?” she demanded. 

“I believe, Marine,” Dorothea said, “that that would be your power armour.”

Ingrid tensed, staring at the crate. Sylvain folded his arms and looked between the Martians and the dead camera in the room. 

“What’s going on?”

Dorothea flipped her hair over one shoulder and smiled at them. “We’re breaking you out of here.”

Sylvain stared at her. “What? Why?”

The Navy Captain frowned and crossed his arms. “Look, we don’t really have the time to discuss this. We bought a little bit of time with the camera and the guards, but we do need to get out of here.”

Ingrid was still staring at her power armour. “What’s the exchange? You’re breaking us out, fine, but why?”

“We need backup,” Dorothea said plainly. “Something weird is going on on Deimos, and we are going to get to the bottom of it.”

Sylvain dropped his arms. “So you’re breaking out two Earthen prisoners instead of just recruiting actual Martians soldiers?”

Dorothea’s gaze flickered to him, cool and assessing, just as a spy should be. “I didn’t think you’d be one to forget near-death experiences so quickly, Ambassador.”

Sylvain’s jaw set as he read her implication. “So it’s come with you now to storm a base on your own moon or die by the hand of the vassal of the Emperor.”

The Navy captain seemed uncomfortable at the implication that Ingrid and Sylvain would be killed, but he did not correct Sylvain. That was enough to determine the truth of the situation. Sylvain nudged Ingrid. 

“Take the armour, Ing, you’re going to need it,” Sylvain suggested. 

She glanced at him, but the look on her face told him that she had come to a similar conclusion in how they should proceed. She crossed the room and Dorothea relinquished the box containing her armour to Ingrid. Ingrid immediately dropped to one knee and opened it, pulling out the plates and heavy pieces of the armour that identified her as a UEMC soldier. 

She disappeared into the bathroom with her suit and Sylvain was left alone with the two Martians. He studied them. There was a tension in both of them that didn’t match the unbothered facade Dorothea was trying to present. 

“Why now?” he asked.

Dorothea pressed her lips together, but her friend didn’t seem to have the same reservations. “We have reason to believe that the Emperor’s ambitions are no longer following the best path for Mars to follow.”

Sylvain was surprised. He thought that all the Martians worshipped their Emperor. “Really? And what led you to that belief? The destruction of your central dome as a consequence of your actions in a war?”

The captain bristled, but Dorothea inserted herself between them. “Try something more along the lines of the fact that she knew who killed your prince and did nothing to stop them besides take their technology to lead us into a bloody and pointless war.”

Sylvain hesitated. “You know who tried to kill Dimitri?”

“Edelgard’s uncle, Arundel, if our information is correct,” Dorothea continued. 

Ingrid reappeared from the bathroom, wearing her power armour. Its bulk made her nearly taller than Sylvain, but it was the image of Ingrid looking at home and confident again that really put Sylvain at ease. 

“And Arundel is on Deimos?” Ingrid asked, her voice sounding almost tinny through her suit. 

“He might be,” the captain confirmed. “Even if he isn’t, there are answers there that could stop the war. Answers that Edelgard is willing to bury for the sake of Martian “freedom”. Someone has to find them.”

Sylvain nodded. “Alright, well if it’s between storm Deimos and stop the war or stay here and get murdered by your Emperor’s shadow, then I’m all for a little assault action, but, I will need a weapon.”

The navy captain reached down to his belt, pulling his pistol out. He tossed it, handle first, to Sylvain and Sylvain snatched it out of the air. He tested it: it was loaded and well maintained. It was also a sign of trust. The gun, combined with returning Ingrid’s power armour, meant that the efforts to befriend them were as genuine as they were going to get. 

Sylvain looked at Ingrid. She nodded at him. 

“Alright, let’s get out of here.”

* * *

**NEW YORK CITY, EARTH**

“What do you mean you’re going to break into the Security Council meeting?” Annette asked, springing to her feet, slamming her palms on her desk with more force than she had intended. 

Felix sighed and adjusted his jacket. “Exactly that. I have the transmission from Dimitri and I need to play it for the Council.”

Annette frowned. “Put a request in. Please, Felix, do this the right way.”

The look he gave her in response was enough to make her stomach sink because of course she knew what would happen if Felix Fraldarius, son of Rodrigue Fraldarius who, in all likelihood, had been assassinated by Cornelia, put in a request to present at the UEK Security Council meeting. He would be turned down the moment he submitted the request. 

She reached across her desk and grabbed his hand. “Please, let me come with you, at the very least.”

“Annette,” Felix argued, “if you come into that meeting with me, any of the blame that falls on my head will fall on yours too.”

She tightened her grip on his hand. “As it should. We’re in this together.”

He sighed, turning his hand to hold hers and then pulled gently. “Let’s go.”

She quickly grabbed her comm, dropping his hand, and they made their way along the top floor of the UEK headquarters towards the council room. There were Marines flanking the door, one of whom looked surprised to see Felix approaching. The other just looked boredly at the wall, ignoring the newcomers. 

“Sergeant?” the Marine questioned. 

“I need into the meeting,” Felix said stiffly. 

“It’s closed attendance,” the soldier countered, furrowing his brow. 

Annette quickly stepped up, touching Felix’s arm. “What he meant was that _I_ need into the meeting!” She lifted her datapad. “I’m Cornelia Arnim’s assistant and she forgot her datapad in her office. She needs it for the meeting.” 

The Marine still looked suspicious. He held a hand out to Annette. “ID?”

She fumbled and handed over her own comm. He scanned it with a reader on his belt and confirmed her position as Cornelia’s assistant, but he still looked suspicious when he handed her comm back. 

“I can bring the datapad in.”

“No!” Annette yelped. 

“It’s classified information,” Felix cut in. “The assistant can’t even give me the files and,” he paused, taking in the Marine’s rank, “I outrank you. I’m the escort to make sure it gets to only the Secretary-General.”

The Marine’s suspicion eased and the other soldier didn’t even bother to give them a cursory look. The door was opened for them and Felix’s hand fell to Annette’s back, quickly shoving her into the room and closing the door behind them. Immediately, the eyes of every person in the Council Room were on them. 

Felix squared his shoulders and didn’t even flinch at the tension that snapped to the surface. Annette couldn’t help but count the eight, armed UEN soldiers in the room. At the head of the roundtable, Cornelia rose to her feet, narrowing her eyes. 

“Sergeant Fraldarius, what are you doing here? This is a closed meeting.”

“I have something for all of you to watch,” Felix replied coolly. He strode forward so that he was standing next to General Valen Galatea. He pulled out his comm and tapped it against the access port on the edge of the table. 

Immediately, the hologram of Mars’s AO was replaced by a video transmission of His Highness, Prince Dimitri. Annette watched surprise and shock flare around the room on the faces of council members and the UEN soldiers. 

Only Cornelia didn’t look surprised, her eyes narrowing the slightest fraction. 

Felix played the transmission. 

“ _Members of the United Earth Kingdom Security Council and people of Earth, I am Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd. Weeks ago, I was a part of a diplomatic mission on the UEN Fhirdiad which was destroyed in neutral space on its way to a rendez-vous with the Martian Emperor to prevent a war._ ”

Annette had already seen the transmission, but that did not make the UEK Prince’s words any less enrapturing. 

“ _I was rescued by a neutral party in a fit of good fortune and have been endeavouring to send a transmission to Earth since my recovery from my injuries. I have since learned of our actions on Enceladus, on Pallas, and in the dramatic strike taken against Victoria. As the reigning head of the UEK, this transmission, sent through Sergeant Felix Hugo Fraldarius, is an official statement of intent to exit this pointless war with Mars. The time for senseless violence has passed. In the interests of the safety of my rescuers, I will return to Earth when there is a ceasefire, temporary or not, declared so that we will arrive safely_.”

It was as if the room had been transformed into a vacuum. Shock and outrage were painted across the faces of every member of the Security Council except for Cornelia. Annette’s boss wasn’t even looking at the transmission. She was looking at Felix and looked almost smug. Fear curled in Annette’s stomach and she clenched her hands into fists. 

“Sailors, would you kindly remove Sergeant Fraldarius from the premises,” Cornelia began, rising to her feet. 

“Remove him?” Valen Galatea burst out, sounding astounded. “He brought a message from our planet’s leader, Cornelia. What are you doing?”

Cornelia’s eyes gleamed sharply. “General, I believe you’ve forgotten that Sergeant Fraldarius was aboard the UEN Fhirdiad himself. He, in official testimony, confirmed that there would have been no way for His Highness to have survived the explosion. It was a freak accident that allowed for the Sergeant’s own survival.”

Annette felt ill as Cornelia’s words settled over the room. She could sense the anger crackling in Felix, but he remained silent, staring down the Secretary-General.

“Further, there is no timestamp or indication of the currentness of His Highness’s message. There isn’t even any proof that this isn’t a ridiculous constructed decoy in the image of His Highness.” Cornelia practically sneered at Felix and Annette thought she might be sick right there. “Given the recent events and the trauma that the Sergeant has been through, it’s fair to give him the benefit of the doubt in that he may have been manipulated by other parties to display this message, but he also could have concocted this on his own.”

The Secretary-General’s words were certainly damning and she seemed to have mostly won over the Security Council. Only Andre Gautier, the political ambassador, seemed unfazed by the interruption. He rose to his feet and eyed Felix suspiciously. 

Annette held her breath. 

“I second the Secretary-General’s motion to have Sergeant Fraldarius removed and I must suggest that he is detained until the information he has presented is professionally evaluated,” Andre Gautier said coolly. 

Felix finally cracked and he lunged towards Andre, his anger boiling over. One of the UEN soldiers caught him and hauled him back as Felix snarled at the ambassador. 

“You killed your own son, you monster,” he snarled. “Dimitri is alive and you’re all buckling under the weight of her selfish ambitions and putting hundreds of thousands of people at risk in this useless war. You blindly follow the words of the woman behind the attack on the Fhirdiad and a man who would callously kill his son to further his own power,” Felix spat as he was hauled backwards. 

His outburst seemed to have shaken the council. Even Andre seemed pressed by Felix’s words as his expression flattened into distaste.

“Take Fraldarius to Holding,” Cornelia said coldly. 

Annette watched, horrified, as Felix was dragged away and she was left standing in front of the Security Council by herself. The eyes in the room had finally seemed to land on her. Cornelia’s eyes narrowed. 

“Miss Dominic,” she said, “is there a reason you were with Sergeant Fraldarius during this outburst of his?”

“No,” Annette lied quickly. She held out the datapad she was still holding. “I had actually just come to bring you this. You left it on my desk this morning.”

Cornelia’s gaze flickered to the datapad in Annette’s hand. “Miss Dominic, I do believe that is your datapad, not mine.”

Annette smiled weakly and laughed faintly at herself. “Right, how silly of me. I’m terribly sorry to have interrupted.”

She spun and quickly headed for the exit to the room, but Cornelia called out to her again. 

“Miss Dominic!” 

Annette turned back, biting her lip. 

“Do be cautious of interacting with individuals like Sergeant Fraldarius in the future. We wouldn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea about your intentions, would we?” Cornelia suggested coldly. 

Annette forced a weak smile and then practically ran out the door. The bored Marine didn’t bat an eye at her, but the other one grabbed her arm as she exited. He looked troubled.

“Why was Fraldarius arrested?”

Annette took a deep shaky breath and looked around. “Because he knows that Prince Dimitri is still alive. Because the Security Council is determined to enforce that he isn’t.”

She pulled her arm out of the Marine’s grip and hurried away down the hall. She made it back to her desk and collapsed into her seat. Her hands were trembling as she pulled out her comm. Felix had given her the transmission codes to contact Prince Dimitri just in case something had happened to his comm. They hadn’t seriously considered that something would happen to _Felix_ , but it was now a reality that Annette had to contend with. 

She took a shaky breath in and held up her comm, initiating a transmission. 

“Your Highness, my name is Annette Dominic. I am the daughter of Gilbert Pronislav and a friend to Sergeant Felix Fraldarius. Felix and I played your transmission for the Security Council today.” Her voice trembled as she continued and she took a deep breath. 

“Your Highness, Cornelia Arnim and Andre Gautier had Felix arrested on suspicions that the transmission was faked. It is my utmost belief that this behaviour means that the Security Council is truly under her thumb and that Cornelia will use this to continue the war with Mars. Please, Your Highness, you must return to Earth or I am afraid of what she’ll do next.”


	19. Nineteen - This Gravity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ashe takes a delivery. Byleth investigates. Lysithea shines a light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a heads up, no update next week unless i get a clouds-parting, miracle shining, life in order moment between now and then since I'm super busy with school and my....big bang fic

Nineteen - This Gravity

* * *

**SPACESHIP GASPARD, NEAR HYGIEA**

The stop at Hygiea had been a last-minute decision. He had been exchanging comms with Petra pretty consistently since the liberation of the colony, but once everything had gotten chaotic with Vesta’s destruction and the Alliance recovering Prince Dimitri, things were definitely getting more complicated. Petra had originally stayed on Hygiea to help her people, but when it became clear that something was going to come of Dimitri and Claude’s alliance, Ashe had asked if she would like to join them.

Petra had responded affirmatively and Ashe had received permission to return to Hygiea to pick her up. At first, he had only expected to be temporarily granted a ship for the purpose of the trip, but Claude was apparently comfortable enough with Ashe to award him his own small craft. It was a six-crew speeder with a small gundeck and it was an older model than many of the current UEN vessels he had trained on, but it was _his_. 

He had also been given permission to rename it. He had called it Gaspard for the small Irish town he had grown up in. Dedue had recognized the town based on Ashe’s prior descriptions of his hometown and Mercedes had told him that the gesture was very sweet. 

The two of them had volunteered to join Ashe for his trip to Hygiea to get Petra. Mercedes joked that it was just like last time except this time they wouldn’t have to worry about getting shot out of orbit when they made their way in. The wry comment had wrung a smile from Dedue and Ashe had laughed. 

Now they were only about an hour away from Hygiea and Ashe had just finished confirming all the details of their arrival with the station managers on Hygiea. In order to reduce their use of the still damaged station, they were only staying long enough to refuel and get Petra on board.

Ashe was fidgeting with the flight controls as he piloted the ship towards Hygiea. Dedue was off in another room exchanging some transmissions with Dimitri and others back on the Derdriu, but Mercedes was on the main deck, taking stock of some of the equipment present on the Gaspard. 

“Are you nervous, Ashe?” Mercedes asked conversationally. 

Ashe turned his head looking at her and he felt his cheeks flush slightly. He wasn’t aware that he had been so transparent in his nervousness. “I suppose I am,” he admitted. “A little, at least.” 

Mercedes laughed lightly at him. “You don’t need to be worried. If your interactions with Petra are anything like they have been over comms, then you’ll be fine, Ashe.”

Ashe felt his ears turn pink. He had hoped that he wasn’t as readable as he was, but apparently, that wasn’t the case. He adjusted his hands on the flight controls.

“It’s a weird feeling,” he admitted shyly. As awkward as this felt, Mercedes was exactly the kind of person that Ashe could imagine telling all of this too. “Weird to think that we might be heading for Earth sometime soon as well,” he tagged on, trying to adjust the course of the conversation. 

Mercedes hummed in agreement. “It’s fascinating to me,” she agreed. “I’ve never been to Earth before. I’ve only ever seen photos and it seems incredibly beautiful.”

Ashe recalled the way that the ocean used to beat against the cliffs near Gaspard and the days spent getting into puddle-splashing competitions with his siblings. He smiled. “It’s beautiful,” he agreed. “Can you come to Earth? Sorry, I’m just not super familiar with how the whole gravity sickness thing works.”

“Oh! Well, yes, I should be able to. I was born on Mars and I spent enough time there that my body developed adjusted to Martian gravity. Therefore, I should be able to withstand Earth’s gravity though I don’t imagine it will be an entirely pleasant experience for me.”

“Right,” Ashe agreed, nodding. It made sense that a Martian-born person could withstand the gravity on Earth, but most Colonists did not have the bone stability to withstand non-artificial gravity without suffering from gravity sickness. 

His transponder beeped and Ashe flicked a switch to accept the landing codes. He smiled at Mercedes. 

“Would you mind fetching Dedue? I’m about to initiate the landing sequence.”

She patted the back of his chair and nodded, disappearing into the ship to fetch their third passenger. Ashe focused back on the task at hand and began piloting the ship slowly into a descent through Hygiea’s orbit. Dedue and Mercedes returned to the main deck and strapped in as Ashe arced the ship into a looping dive, aiming for the opening to the docking bay. 

The Gaspard’s craft size was small and easily maneuverable so Ashe managed to land neatly without the tiniest dent on his new ship. He smiled to himself for a moment as he ran through his post-flight checks. The station was already reaching out to refuel them and replenish their oxygen supplies. 

After a moment, there was an affirmative beep over the comms system that confirmed the pressurization of the docking bay. Ashe unstrapped and waved for the others to do the same. Dedue walked over to help him pop the hatch on the bottom of the ship so that they could climb out into the main station. 

Before Ashe could jump down, Dedue touched his arm. “Dimitri has heard back from Earth,” he relayed. 

Ashe stared at his friend. “Really? Is it good news?”

Dedue frowned. “He did not want to share it over comms,” he admitted. “He was worried about broadcasting into Martian space.”

Ashe nodded. It was a perfectly reasonable thing to be concerned about, especially if the message that had come from Earth contained sensitive information. “Well, we’ll head right back to the Derdriu and get it from him directly. We’re not stopping here for long.”

Dedue nodded. “Thank you, Ashe, I appreciate it.”

Ashe smiled. “Thank you for coming with me. I appreciate your,” he turned his head, extending the compliment to Mercedes as well, “company.”

Ashe dropped out the bottom of his ship and saw a group of Hygieans standing nearby. His gaze was immediately drawn to the young woman at the front of the group, still dressed in the purples and greens of the Hygiean rebels. She beamed when she saw him and jogged towards him. 

“Ashe!” she greeted warmly. “It is good to be seeing you.”

“Petra,” he replied, nodding. Her smile was infectious and Ashe felt himself smiling too. He straightened his shoulders and looked around the station. “How have things been here?”

She laughed and reached out, pushing her fist lightly into his shoulder. “You have knowledge of this. We are doing well since Mars has left us.”

“I’m glad,” he said sincerely. 

Petra stepped a bit closer to him and Ashe felt himself blush faintly, but he just smiled nervously and turned to look at the ship behind them where Mercedes and Dedue were emerging. Petra noticed them and brightened, stepping past Ashe to greet the other two. 

“Dedue! I see you are no longer shot!”

Dedue chuckled. “I have been well taken care of,” he agreed. Ashe noticed his gaze track lightly over Mercedes who was just smiling at Petra, though he did catch a slight softening of her eyes at Dedue’s phrase. 

“Petra!” a voice called and Ashe turned to see an older gentleman approaching them, wearing clothes very similar to Petra’s. He was holding out a staff to her which Ashe thought was the same one she had been using during the Battle for Hygiea. 

Petra quickly took the staff and threw her arms around the man. They lingered in the hug for a moment before she pulled back, affectionately touching the man’s cheek. Ashe vaguely recognized the man as the governor of Hygiea and, therefore, Petra’s grandfather: the original reason that she had stayed on Hygiea both when they had first met and after the battle. 

She said something to him in a language that Ashe didn’t know and her grandfather laughed and patted her cheek before he pushed her away. He looked past her to Ashe and Ashe nodded and fell into an almost half-bow out of instinct. The man’s eyes softened and he nodded back to him. 

“We should be going, right?” Petra said, turning back to Ashe. 

Ashe blinked and then nodded. “Right, yeah, we can set off as soon as you’re ready and the ship is all done being refuelled.”

“My grandfather has told me that the ship’s refuelling has been completed and that we can be heading off!”

Dedue and Mercedes both nodded and turned back to re-enter the Gaspard and Ashe stepped towards them, beckoning for Petra to follow him. She did for a few paces until they were almost right under the entry port to the ship when she hesitated. 

Ashe looked at her. “Are you okay?”

Her smile slipped into something a little more curious and shy. “Is it silly of me to say that I am never having been on a spaceship before?”

“I don’t think it’s silly,” Ashe assured. He shrugged. “I’d only done one real tour before all of this happened,” he added. 

Petra studied him, tilting her head slightly. “You are the pilot so I will be trusting you on this.”

Ashe took her hand, tugging it lightly towards the ship and he grinned at her. “Come on, we have a galaxy for you to explore, don’t we?”

* * *

**SPACESHIP SEIROS, DOCKING BAY OF SPACESHIP DERDRIU**

“Come on, come on,” Byleth muttered to herself as she tapped her comm against the console.

She was frowning at the display as it ran decryption software on the medical files. She had dug them out of life support coding on the Seiros way back when she had first tried to restart Sothis, but she had hardly had a minute to actually investigate them. She didn’t want to share them with anyone, except maybe Dimitri, but he was busy dealing with the fact that his government seemed to have hijacked his planet. 

Finally, after what felt like a millennium, the first of the records popped up. They were a man’s medical records and Byleth’s breath caught immediately at the place of birth. She lifted a hand as if to touch the hologram and just hung it in the air as she stared in shock. 

“How is this possible?” she asked the empty ship deck. “Nobody is ever born on Selene. The UEK swears on that.” She swallowed and scanned the rest of the file. 

The photo attached was of a man with a stern expression, but it did not hide the faint wrinkles around his mouth and eyes that betrayed a probably long lifetime of smiling. He had hair that was a rich emerald green colour that Byleth had never seen before. His eyes, too, were the same shade of green. His features looked sharper and more angular than most people’s, but it was the small curling white mark barely visible below his ear that really caught her attention. 

Byleth lifted a hand and brushed her fingertips over her own mark: the strange arcing white symbol that had been there since she was born, or so her father claimed. He had borne no mark and Byleth was absolutely entranced to see it on this mysterious man's neck in the same place that it was on hers. 

“Cichol,” she read aloud, looking at the name field on the record. “Known aliases include Seteth.”

She pushed aside the holo of Cichol’s medical form and brought up the next file. It was a young-looking girl with a similar vibrant shade of green for her hair and eyes. She was smiling brightly in the photo and Byleth could just barely make out the white flick by her ear that matched Cichol’s. 

“Cethleann,” she murmured. “Also known as Flayn.”

Byleth studied the two files side by side. Cichol was listed as Cethleann’s father, but her mother was apparently unknown. Their birthdates were unknown, but their dates of death were marked as the same day. The cause of death was listed as acute myocardial infarction for both of them and the times were within hours of each other. Byleth swallowed and scanned the underlying causes. 

“Aeromytopic poisons,” she read. Byleth pressed her lips together. 

Aeromytopic poisons were a series of banned, incredibly dangerous poisons only manufactured in places with lower than one-g gravity fields, like Selene. They were banned and highly restricted due to their easily hidden nature that disguised heart failure or brain hemorrhaging as natural effects. If both of these people, father and daughter, were killed by aeromytopic poisons, it had almost certainly been an intentional incident: whether self-inflicted or not. 

It didn’t, however, explain to her who these mysterious people were so she dismissed the patient records and pulled up the next file. 

The next one was an observation record on a different person, but this name, unlike the previous two, was familiar to Byleth. Her breath caught and her eyes welled up with tears, her nose prickling with the effort to hold them back. 

“Mom,” she whispered in disbelief. 

The file was detailing the observation of a young woman named Sitri who was apparently a fragile Lunar. Byleth just stared at the report, completely bewildered. She had never heard the word ‘Lunar’ before in reference to a group of people. As far as history was concerned, nobody was ever born on Selene and Earth’s moon had been a barren rock before the UEK’s arrival. 

“There were people on Selene,” Byleth breathed in shock. 

“There were what?”

Her head snapped away from the hologram and she slammed her hand down, trying to dismiss it, but it was clearly too late. Claude von Riegan stood in the doorway onto the bridge and he looked as surprised as she felt. Byleth frowned at him. 

“You’re entirely too good at sneaking up on people,” she said. 

He chuckled. “No, I rather think you’re just not used to being snuck up on, Miss Eisner.” He stepped onto the bridge and held his hands up. “Welcome or unwelcome?”

She sighed. “You’ve already heard, haven’t you?”

He walked up next to her and stared at the report that she hadn’t quite managed to dismiss. Byleth watched as his brows knit as he scanned it over, taking in the major points. He pointed at the line that identified Sitri as a ‘Lunar’.

“There were people on Selene,” he repeated. “Holy shit. Is that what your government is covering up?”

Byleth shook her head, feeling kind of shaken. “Look at the date of the observation,” she said quietly. “This is from over seventy years ago. The UEK has only had real, established research bases there for twenty years.”

“Then who are these reports from?” Claude questioned. He turned to look at her, frowning. “Where did you get these reports from?” 

Byleth tapped her comm nervously against the console. “I found it buried in the life support coding on my ship,” she admitted. 

Claude looked around the bridge of the ship. “And let me guess: this ship came from Selene.”

“I don’t know exactly,” she confessed. “My father was never entirely honest with me about that much.”

Claude looked back at the image of Byleth’s mother. “She looks like you,” he pointed out. “Relative? Ancestor?”

Byleth pressed her lips together. “My mother.”

Claude tensed and he ran a hand over his face, obviously trying to process all of the conflicting and confusing information. He looked at the date on the report and then looked back at Byleth, green eyes darting over her face, assessing. 

“This report is over seventy years old. How can this be your mother?”

Byleth closed her eyes and felt pain crack onto her face. “I don’t know, but I honestly have no idea how old I am,” she said quietly. “I’ve been on the Seiros my entire life. Time gets funny up here if you don’t make an effort to keep track of it and since we spent most of our time evading Mars and Earth, keeping track of time was never on our priorities list.”

Claude considered her words. “You know that’s simultaneously the most interesting and most terrifying thing that I’ve ever heard.”

She laughed. “I don’t know if I should apologize for that.”

He shook his head. “No, don’t. I like puzzles.” He gestured to the holographic report. “Are there more?”

Byleth nodded. “Encrypted ones. I’m running my best software on it, but it will take time. My AI,” she swallowed hard, “was always much better at this kind of thing than I was.”

“Well, I do have the young genius who nearly beat your AI on my side,” he chimed in. “That is, if you’re comfortable with sharing this data with her.”

Byleth twisted her hands together. “This is Lysithea, right? The same girl who suffers from gravity sickness?”

“Yes,” Claude confirmed. “She’s the brightest hacker I’ve ever met in my life. There’s also the Earthen, Ashe, but he’s off fetching the representative of Hygiea right now. Plus, I think Lysithea has a little more tact and experience with private information.”

Byleth took a deep breath and dismissed the hologram off the central console, recalling it to her comm and stopping the decryption. “Alright, but I have one question first.”

Claude raised an eyebrow. “Sure. What is it?”

“Why are you helping Dimitri?” she asked. “You’ve spent the last several years building a free Alliance of Outer Colonies that can operate without Earth or Mars. Why now, in the middle of an intergalactic war where you’ve finally begun to reap the fruits of your labour, are you helping the United Earth Kingdom Prince contact and attempt to regain control of his government?"

Claude gave her a light smirk. “You’re smart, you know. I think you’re smarter than most people give you credit for.”

Byleth crossed her arms. “Most people don’t know me,” she pointed out.

“You know, Leonie hardly remembers you. She remembers your father just fine, but she’s fuzzy on the details on you,” Claude continued. “That makes you mysterious.”

Byleth narrowed her eyes. “Why are you helping Earth?”

“Because I don’t want the independence of the Alliance to be borne of a war. If we rise to self-governance during a war between the previous controllers of our territory, that’s all we’ll ever be known for. Our entire existence will be defined by the fact that we became independent through the military conquests of Earth and Mars. That’s an unnecessary history of bloodshed the Alliance doesn’t need. It’s a history I don’t want for my people,” Claude explained.

Byleth studied his face. He seemed genuine enough and she didn’t know whether or not that was surprising to her. Since her arrival on the Derdriu and their meeting on the Sothis, Byleth wasn’t sure how to read Claude. He wasn’t open and earnest like Dimitri was most of the time. He was secretive and intelligent and far more cunning than the good-hearted Earthen prince. 

“Why not help Mars?”

Claude laughed. “With what we did to Hygiea? I know that the UEK wanted me dead, but Dimitri is a good man. He’ll do right by Earth and the Alliance. Edelgard, the Martian Emperor, is the same woman who detonated Vesta simply because she could. I have no peace to make with her. No, we’re helping Dimitri because we have to.” He crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow at her. “Is that a satisfactory answer, Miss Eisner?”

“Byleth,” she corrected. She held out a hand for him to shake and gave him a small smile. “Byleth is fine.”

* * *

**SPACESHIP DERDRIU, OUTER COLONIES**

The transmission line had been quiet for suspiciously long. The UEK Prince had predicted that they would hear back from his friend, at the least, and his government, at the most, by the end of the day cycle, but the comm line that the communication had been sent on was still quiet, as were the rest of the Derdriu’s systems. 

Lysithea pulled up the records log and stared at the timestamp. Based on when it was sent and the transmission delay between Earth and Io, it was safe to assume that it should have taken around two hours to reach Earth and then a few hours to actually handle the transmission and another two hours to reply. 

They were now approaching the twelve-hour mark which was more than a little suspicious. 

She pulled out her own comm and opened a message to Claude, but before she could record it, the doors to the communication dock slid open and Claude stepped into the room, followed closely by Byleth, the woman who had come with Dimitri. Lysithea lowered the comm and stared at Claude. 

“I was just about to call you.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

She waved a hand at the open transmission log. “Still no word from Earth. According to the prince’s predictions, we should have heard something by now.”

Claude frowned and stepped closer to the transmission log, leaning forward on the edge of the console as he studied it. “That’s odd. You would think a matter like this might be treated with some semblance of urgency, but you never know.” He turned back to Lysithea. “In the meantime, while we wait, can you take a look at this?”

Byleth held out a comm and Lysithea took it, swiping up on the screen to bring it to life. She was immediately bombarded with rows of encrypted data that appeared to be protecting files. She scrolled for a moment, observing hundreds of protected files before she looked up at Byleth.

“This is military-grade encryption. Where did it come from?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Claude said dismissively and Lysithea grit her teeth. “Can you crack it?”

She placed Byleth’s comm flat against her own and began the transfer of all the files. Of course she could crack the encryptions. That was a silly question. 

“What is it, then?” she asked. “If I’m not supposed to know where it came from, can I at least know what it is? It might help speed up the process.”

“They’re stolen files from Selene. I found them in the coding on my ship. They were buried deeply enough that the ship’s AI didn’t even know they were there,” Byleth explained before Claude could give Lysithea another cloaked response. 

“From Selene?” Lysithea questioned as she tapped something on her screen. Her software went to work dismantling and untangling the protections on the files. “What’s on Selene besides a few manufacturing plants and research stations?”

Byleth held her hand out for her comm back and Lysithea passed it over. She brought up a file that was a medical observation report for a woman named Sitri. It was dated seventy-three years ago and Lysithea frowned and studied it. 

The file was odd, that was to be sure, but it was the insignia in the corner of the report that caught her attention. Her breath caught and she zoomed in on it, heightening the focus of it. 

“What’s that?” Claude asked. 

“It looks like a corporate logo,” Byleth said. 

Lysithea touched the back of her neck, feeling her blood run cold. “I guess it is, but it’s more than that too,” she said quietly. “I’ve only ever seen this symbol once before.”

Both of them looked at her and she sighed, grabbing her long white hair and twisting it up into a ponytail to expose her neck. She turned around and showed the tiny white mark that was inked into her skin at the top of her neck where it was positioned over an old scar. 

“That’s the same mark,” Claude said, sounding surprised. “Why do you have that mark?”

Lysithea dropped her hair down and smoothed it out, not looking at either of them. “Because when I was a young girl, Io was a hot spot for research and development. A coalition of Martian and Earthen Scientists came to Io and injected every one of my mother’s children with a serum that was built to destabilize and destroy our bone composition.”

“What?” Byleth demanded. “How is that possible? Shouldn’t it have killed you? Shouldn’t the authorities have done something?”

Lysithea smiled wryly. “My mother is the governor of Io. By experimenting on her children, they rendered her powerless to stop them or else we would stop receiving the antidote and treatment for the horrible things that they put us through. And, yes, all things considered, it should have killed us. And it did.”

“Your siblings,” Claude guessed. “I had heard that you had siblings at one point, but now you’re Evangeline’s only remaining child.”

“Yes,” Lysithea confirmed. “The marrow destabilization killed all of my siblings, but in me, it manifested as something else.” She gestured to her white hair. “Care to guess?”

“Artificially induced gravity sickness,” Byleth surmised. She shook her head, her expression disturbed. “Why would anyone want to artificially induce such a severe case of gravity sickness?”

“Margin for manipulation? Sadism? Plans for widespread terrorism?” Lysithea suggested. “I don’t know. All I know is that, now, I suffer from gravity sickness under all conditions not just the g-forces related to planetary living and my life is kind of shit because of that.”

Claude rubbed at his face. “So the people who did this to you and your family, they’re the same company that made these reports from Selene?”

Lysithea stared at the report. The image of the green-haired woman rubbed her the wrong way. She was familiar and yet alien seeming with sharp features and an almost etherealness to her expression. 

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I suppose it’s possible, but those people have been gone from Io for years. They left when I was nine years old and we never found out where they were going.”

Byleth and Claude exchanged a look, but then Claude shook his head, running a hand through his hair. 

“No, that doesn’t make sense. With all the attention on Selene in the last few years, especially with that cabal that was taken down for surface-running, they wouldn’t have existed there without extreme scrutiny from the UEK government, even if the UEK government is a little shady as it stands,” Claude explained. 

“What about Mars?” Lysithea pointed out. “We’ve been saying through this whole war that Mars didn’t have the kind of stealth tech that took out the UEN Fhirdiad, so what if they didn’t?” She gestured vaguely to the reports that were slowly becoming unencrypted. “What if they had help from someone?”

Byleth frowned. “You’re saying that this group, whoever they were, moved from Selene to Io and then to Mars? That they supplied Mars with the capabilities to start a war against Earth?”

Claude snapped. “The Emperor! What Caspar said back when he joined up. The Martian Emperor suffers from gravity sickness even though–and I’ve checked–there was no record of it in her childhood medical records. You think that they’ve been pulling strings on Mars too.”

Lysithea sighed. “I don’t know. Whatever is going on, it must have been ended when she staged her coup, right? I can’t imagine her doing something like that if she was just someone’s puppet.”

“No,” Byleth agreed. “Maybe the coup was her way of breaking out of whatever system was left behind.”

Lysithea was about to comment on that idea when Prince Dimitri ran into the room, appearing slightly out of breath. Lysithea dismissed the mysterious reports off the holo and stared at the prince as he wordlessly held up a comm. Byleth took it and transferred the video feed to the display. 

A young woman with red hair appeared on screen, looking incredibly nervous. 

“ _Your Highness, my name is Annette Dominic. I am the daughter of Gilbert Pronislav and a friend to Felix Fraldarius. Felix and I played your transmission for the Security Council today._ ” 

All four of them leaned into the transmission, entranced by the explanation they were getting, but the grim look on the young Earthen’s face did not bode well for the rest of her message. 

“ _Your Highness, Cornelia Arnim and Andre Gautier had Felix arrested on suspicions that the transmission was faked. It is my utmost belief that this behaviour means that the Security Council is truly under her thumb and that Cornelia will use this to continue the war with Mars. Please, Your Highness, you must return to Earth or I am afraid of what she’ll do next._ ”

Claude spun away from the console, cursing under his breath. Byleth crossed her arms and stared at the prince. Lysithea stared at the end of the transmission. It was certainly one explanation as to why they hadn’t heard back regarding the message they had sent. 

“Cornelia has staged a coup on Earth,” the prince said firmly. He looked angry, but it was a quiet, simmering dark anger that made Lysithea nervous. “Claude, I’m sure you already know what I am going to ask of you.”

Claude turned back to face Prince Dimitri, a wry smile on his face. “You want me to bring the Alliance to Earth. You want to stage another, larger, coup in which we overthrow your planet’s democratically elected leader.”

It sounded ridiculous, but by the look on Claude’s face, Lysithea knew that he had already decided to pursue the potentially very foolish course of action. 

“I’ve always wanted to go to Earth,” the Alliance leader finished, his smile widening. 


	20. Twenty - Raging Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reclamation of Earth begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're a day early again, but this is to make up for the lack of update last week. Updates should be on schedule next week, hopefully the week after that on Sundays!

Twenty - Raging Storm

* * *

**SPACESHIP DERDRIU, OUTER COLONIES**

Mercedes was keeping herself busy in the med bay of the Derdriu, but her mind was elsewhere. Her thoughts were with the soldiers and politicians who were standing on the command deck of the Derdriu deciding the swiftest course of action. Through the grapevine, she had heard that the favoured course was to steer the Alliance and their entire fleet towards Earth. 

She rubbed her thumb over her tattoo as she restacked rolls of bandages in a box. The Alliance medic, a young woman from Vesta, had been trying to organize the bay, but she had ended up making it more of a mess than it already had been. Mercedes, in an effort to distract herself, was trying to fix as much of it as she could. 

The doors to the room hissed opened behind her and someone knocked on the doorframe. Mercedes paused, stilling her hands, and looked over her shoulder. Dedue stood just inside the entrance to the room, his head lowered a bit to accommodate the slightly lowered ceilings. He was dressed in a UEN uniform that, Mercedes would freely admit, made him look the part of the bodyguard to the UEK Prince. 

“Hello Dedue,” she greeted. “Do you need me to check your shoulder again?”

Since Hygiea, Dedue’s shoulder had healed very well, but she was keeping a close eye on it to make sure that it didn’t get infected and that he didn’t pull the stitches she had sewn into his skin. He was out of a sling now and she really hoped that he wasn’t already taking on tasks requiring him to use his arm. 

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I actually have a proposition for you.”

Mercedes blinked. “A proposition?”

“You are from Pallas, aren’t you?”

She nodded. “Well, Mars, originally, but I spent most of my time on Pallas.”

“Then, and forgive me for my directness, do you have the bone structure of a Martian?”

She hesitated, but there was no judgement in his voice. “I do,” Mercedes agreed. “I’m lucky enough that I can withstand most g-forces under and including one g without suffering from gravity sickness.”

“Then,” he continued, “do you think you could attempt to replicate what you did to the skipper and to the fleet before Hygiea again?”

Mercedes crossed her arms. “What are you asking around?” she questioned. She could feel the roundabout nature of the questions as he directly avoided asking what he was truly intending. 

Dedue sighed. “I told them this was not my strong suit, but Ashe was rather firm in insisting that I be the one to ask you.”

She tilted her head and pressed her lips together, waiting. Dedue stepped closer to her and this time when he looked at her, his sincerity was no longer veiled and she could see it in his face. 

“Will you accompany us to Earth? The Seiros is operational for the mission as are the AN’s Ailell and Sauin ships. Your assistance would be much appreciated.”

Mercedes smiled. “I would be honoured to.”

Dedue smiled at her and Mercedes’s heart fluttered. They had grown quite close in the ensuing days after Hygiea’s liberation and it made her wonder what would happen next, both through the ongoing war and also after, if they were both alive to see out the other side. 

“Come on,” she beckoned. “I imagine that this is probably quite time-sensitive, isn’t it?”

Dedue chuckled and nodded. “Yes, I was sent here to retrieve you if you were amiable to the idea.”

She led the way out of the med bay and they walked in companionable silence to the lift that went to the command deck. When they entered the lift, Dedue touched her arm lightly and she looked up at him, not for the first time feeling a little surprised at his towering height. 

“Mercedes, please, do not feel as if you owe us anything. I do not want you to do this if you feel you would be safer returning home to Pallas. I have not forgotten that you left a life there to join Ashe and I.”

She curled her hand over his and tapped the back of his hand with her thumb lightly. “I am not doing anything that I do not want to do, I assure you of that, Dedue.”

The lift’s doors opened before either of them could say anything else and Mercedes drew out of his touch, stepping onto the bridge. Most of Claude’s inner circle was present along with Ashe, Byleth, and the UEK Prince. Lysithea, the Alliance’s main technical expert, was adjusting a series of coding lines on the centre console that, upon a closer glance, looked like the coding work that Mercedes had developed with the help of the Alliance before Hygiea.

“You’re back,” Claude said, nodding to both of them. 

Mercedes moved to stand next to Lysithea and handed the younger woman her personal comm where she had all the information she had on Martian scanners saved. Lysithea took it wordlessly and began crossing the strands of code, looking for areas she could smooth out. 

“Will it work?” Hilda asked, crossing her arms and wrinkling her nose at the scrawling lines of code.

Lysithea frowned. “Honestly? There is a good chance it will hide us from the larger scanners on Mars itself, but from every Martian ship in the AO? No. Someone will pick us up.”

Claude sighed. “And we’ll have to be ready for that eventuality. It’s a risk we need to take.”

“I know we are trying to get to Earth as quickly as possible, but is there a route we can take that takes us through fewer of their higher traffic areas?” Byleth asked, folding her arms. 

Dimitri frowned. “I’d almost rather take the risk if it gets us to Earth more quickly. I am worried as to what will happen if we delay any longer.”

“Your Highness,” Petra said, cutting in, “if I am understanding correctly, your friend on Earth was arrested. Surely that is buying you some time as your Council is grappling with that fact?”

Mercedes studied the UEK Prince. He seemed unsettled by the number of eyes on him and the pressure in the room, but she didn’t doubt that he was under a lot of pressure to make the right call in this situation. 

“Felix’s arrest may buy us some time, but it is another obstacle to Cornelia’s deadly war that she has brushed aside. She might take the opportunity and capitalize on it, pushing through more measures that worsen all of our situations.” Dimitri hesitated, looking at Claude who Mercedes could see was contemplating the situation gravely. “This is not my army to command,” he admitted. 

Mercedes bit her lip. It was an interesting concession for the prince to make considering his planet’s history of oppressing the Colonies. It made her the tiniest bit more optimistic for the future of the new Alliance that Claude was building. 

“Dimitri is right,” Claude said suddenly. “We can’t take the risks that further delays would cause. It is in our best interest to take the most direct route possible and just be prepared to handle any Martian ships we encounter along the way.”

Mercedes frowned. She didn’t enjoy the thought of violence in the interest of stopping violence, especially since there wasn’t a lot that a medic could do in the heat of a space battle. She would be helpless until everything had settled down at the end and that could very well be too late to help the people who would need her assistance. She looked down at the console and so that her distaste did not show on her face. 

She knew that it was the right course of action, but that didn’t make the decision any lighter on her stomach. 

“And what will we do when we get to Earth?” Ashe asked suddenly. “If Cornelia is controlling New York, that’s where we’ll need to land, but how do we land in New York if they’re controlling all ground access and restricting it.”

“We land one ship,” Claude says. “We have to get transponder codes to land one ship. That’s all we’ll need since many of us,” he gestured to many of the Colony-born Alliance members, “can’t go to the surface anyways. It will be up to you Earthens mostly to take back what you can.”

“There are Earth and Mars-born sailors in the Alliance that can join you,” Lorenz said. “It’s not the best use of our resources, but it will be necessary, so we can staff the ships accordingly.”

Claude looked around the command deck. “Byleth, you can fly the Seiros down, right? You can take Ashe for your second-point pilot. Dimitri obviously will be with you and Dedue and,” he paused, scanning the bridge until his eyes landed on Mercedes, “Mercedes and Leonie,” he finished. 

“Yes,” Byleth confirmed. “I can withstand one-g well enough and I can bring the Seiros in if we have the codes to get us a landing port. If I don’t have codes then we just get blown out of the sky upon attempted entry. How do we get those codes?”

Mercedes tapped her fingers on the console. “The young woman who sent the transmission to you, Your Highness,” she spoke up. “Could she get them?”

Dimitri pondered her words. “I’m not sure. If she can’t, then maybe she could at least get Felix.”

* * *

**THEBE, MARS**

The Summer Palace had always made Edelgard feel claustrophobic. When it was empty of basically all people except for her, Hubert, and a few guards and servants, it served as a reminder of how quiet and lonely her childhood had been. When it was overfilled with all the people who normally would have resided in Victoria, it was a bitter reminder of the brutal war waging above them in space. 

She stood alone in her study, staring out the window on her wall at Thebe. Thebe was nothing like Victoria. Victoria had been a shining jewel of progress, but it had been practical and basic: the original dome. Thebe was more extravagant with glass buildings and desert parks where the architects of the dome had tried to create something akin to a rich man’s district. 

It was abhorrent. 

“Close blinds,” Edelgard said, turning away from the window. 

She walked over to her desk and picked up her personal comm. She pulled up a new, private message and hit record. 

“Ferdinand, I need to speak with you. Meet me in my office as soon as you can.”

She released the button and the comm disappeared, off to notify one of her navy captains. She was about to put the comm down when it dinged with a text comm. Edelgard frowned, but pulled up the comm. 

[ _ERROR: This message could not be delivered_ ]

“Error?” she said aloud, surprised. 

Ferdinand was notorious for keeping his comm close at hand and replying punctually to any messages that were sent to him. If the message couldn’t be delivered, it meant one of two things: the comm was out of range for the short-wave transmission or it was turned off entirely. 

Edelgard had a sinking suspicion as to which one was correct, but she could only hope that she was wrong. She slid her comm into her pocket and straightened her blazer. She knew one way that would confirm her suspicions one way or another, so she might as well just go check on him in person. 

She strode out of her office and down the hall towards the palace’s personal quarters. Edelgard had put the members of her inner circle up in rooms close to her own chambers, so she knew where each of them, in theory, would be. 

Bernadetta hardly left her room unless she was reporting something to Hubert or Edelgard herself. Linhardt was hardly in his room since he spent so much time in the make-shift lab she had given him here in Thebe. Dorothea and Ferdinand, on the other hand, spent a healthy balance of time between their workspaces and their rooms. 

She found Ferdinand’s room and knocked on his door. After a moment, there was no answer and she frowned. She turned the door handle and the door opened. As she had feared, Ferdinand’s room was empty. Edelgard stepped inside, closing the door behind her and looked around. 

When a handheld comm unit was turned off, it looked like almost no more than a palm-sized piece of glass with a thin metal strip across the top. Therefore, Edelgard could have been forgiven for almost missing the comm on Ferdinand’s dresser. She saw it, however, when the light caught on it, reflecting at her. 

She picked it up and slid her finger across the screen, powering it on. It beeped and came to life from her touch. As soon as it was turned on, it flashed with a new notification as her original transmission came through. Edelgard frowned. 

Acting on a hunch, she pulled out her own comm and sent a message to Dorothea.

[ _ERROR: This message could not be delivered_ ]

Edelgard took a deep breath and opened a channel to Hubert. “Hubert, I need you.”

After a second, his reply came through. “ _Anything you need, Lady Edelgard._ ”

“Meet me outside the ambassador’s room.”

She pocketed both hers and Ferdinand’s comms and quickly made her way across the palace to the room where she was holding the UEK Ambassador and his Marine companion. Hubert had beaten her there and he was kneeling on the ground, checking the wounds on the two unconscious guards outside of the room. 

“What happened?” Edelgard asked, staring at the unconscious Martians. 

Hubert looked up at her, frowning. “By the force behind the wounds, it looks like they were beaten over the head with something very heavy and very metal.”

Edelgard folded her arms. “The Earthens?”

“Gone, as I’m sure you expected.”

She rubbed a hand over her face. “Put the palace on alert. They can’t have gotten far.”

Hubert’s eyebrow twitched in response and she recognized the motion. It was one of his only tells that gave away his true emotional state and the eyebrow twitch meant that he was irritated. If Hubert was irritated, it meant that the Earthens had gotten far farther than they were supposed to, even in a palace overrun by Martian soldiers. 

“Hubert?” she pressed. 

He sighed and brushed his hands off, rising to his full height in front of her. “Dorothea did not report in today. Neither did Ferdinand.”

Edelgard took Ferdinand’s comm out of her pocket and turned it over, appraising it. “I dearly hope that they were not truly that stupid,” she said coolly. “I have had enough-”

She broke off in the middle of the sentence when a headache attacked her brain without warning. Her hands snapped to her temples as her words twisted into a low groan and she shut her eyes. The headache subsided after a second, but it was followed by a heavy wave of nausea that turned in her stomach. She stumbled and Hubert quickly stepped forward, catching her arm. 

“Your Majesty,” he said quietly. “When was the last time you took the meds?”

Edelgard gritted her teeth. “Not since I evicted Arundel from my planet.”

Hubert tensed. “Your Majesty, you need to take something. Your health will only deteriorate even more quickly if you do not.”

She dropped her hands from her head as the nausea slowly faded. “I have nothing left to take,” she replied simply. “Normal gravity sickness medication has never worked on me as it should and Linhardt has yet to come up with a treatment of his own design.”

“We shall go ask him then,” Hubert said firmly. 

He was still holding her by the arm as he directed her away from the bodies of the unconscious, possibly dead, Martians lying on the ground. Edelgard let him steer her towards a lift that could take them down to the laboratory where Linhardt was usually hard at work. When the lift doors closed, Edelgard handed Ferdinand’s comm to Hubert. 

“Find them,” she ordered. “I have my suspicions, but I hope they’re not true.”

“Dorothea saved the ambassador once already. I do not find it entirely unlikely that she would come up with this contrived plan,” Hubert replied. 

“I know,” Edelgard sighed. “I just really hope that they did not bring Bernadetta into whatever scheme they have pulled. Find out if any shuttles or crafts have left and their recorded destinations.”

“Of course,” he agreed. 

The lift doors slid open and Edelgard, steadier on her feet now, led the way out, making her way down the hall to the lab where there were two posted Marines on guard. They both gave her short, respectful bows, but she didn’t even pause, scanning her palm on the access port to open the door and walking into the lab. 

As soon as she walked into the lab, there was a crash and her head snapped to the right to see Linhardt standing above a shattered glass vial, frowning. Edelgard raised an eyebrow. 

“Linhardt?”

He looked up at her and then back down at the vial that had broken on his workbench. He sighed heavily and walked towards her, completely ignoring the broken glass like it was normal. 

“Your Majesty,” he said politely. 

Edelgard stole another glance at the broken vial. “Everything alright?”

He shrugged. “Some of my latest concoctions seem to have the uncanny trait in which they like to spontaneously combust and break all my glassware.”

Edelgard blinked. “Spontaneously combust?”

Linhardt waved off her concern. “I’m scrapping this chain of work. I’ve got another, better idea that’s actually incubated well. I might be ready to begin testing on cells soon.”

“What about human test trials?” she asked. 

He shook his head firmly. “Absolutely not. As it is still untested, human trials are the last stage of these investigations.”

“Linhardt,” Edelgard pushed gently. “How long?”

“Another few months until I have an operational test sample for human testing at the minimum.”

“Her Majesty does not have a few months,” Hubert said as he finally approached the conversation. 

Linhardt gave her an assessing look and his lips pressed into a thin line. “Arundel didn’t just remove his researchers when he left, did he?”

“No,” Edelgard agreed. “He took the only treatment that has ever worked for me with him.”

Linhardt crossed his arms. “I have a sample,” he admitted. “It’s completely untested and I have no idea what the consequences of using it might be, but I do have a sample.”

“Absolutely not,” Hubert said. “We will speed up your testing and create something that way.”

Edelgard turned to Hubert. She laid a hand on his arm in an effort to be reassuring, but she didn’t think that the tremors in her fingers were presenting the image of a calm, stable Emperor that she wanted to project. 

“I’ll do it, Linhardt.”

Linhardt looked uneasy. “I don’t like this idea,” he admitted. “I should probably refuse to treat you purely on principle.”

“We don’t have another choice,” she reminded. 

* * *

**NEW YORK CITY, EARTH**

Felix had expected Cornelia to pull something at the Council meeting when he had shown the transmission. He had only hoped that the other members of the Security Council would be smart enough to see when she was so blatantly manipulating them. Instead, Andre Gautier had backed her up and Felix had been arrested. 

He held enough respect amongst most of the navy and the Marine Corps that he probably could have talked the sailors bringing him to Holding out of locking him up if they hadn’t been private security goons hired by Cornelia to do her every bidding. So, now, Felix was locked up in a cell, lying on his back on the cot to rest his legs staring up at the ceiling. 

He had no idea what would happen to Dimitri now with their only reasonable plan having been so easily defeated. He didn’t know if he had gotten Annette into trouble by dragging her into the meeting room with him or if she’d managed to get herself out of it. 

The waiting was agonizing. 

He spent what felt like an entire day just pacing the cell until his legs and back hurt too badly and he had laid down again. He ended up falling asleep at some point when the adrenaline in his body faded and so he was startled awake by the opening of his cell door an unknown amount of time later. He sat up so quickly he got dizzy and his back twinged in pain. 

In the door of the cell stood a Marine that Felix sort of recognized. He had been a part of one of Ingrid’s squads a while back before she had been promoted to Gunnery Sergeant. Felix stood up from the cot and crossed his arms, staring down the other Marine. 

“What’s going on?”

The Marine just nodded to him and stepped aside. The next thing Felix knew, a ball of colour was darting towards him as Annette burst in, throwing her arms around him and burying her face in his chest. Felix could barely do more than hug her back awkwardly until she pulled away beaming at him. 

“We’re breaking you out,” Annette answered. 

Felix stared, confused. “We?”

He looked back at the door to the cell and saw a couple of Marines that he had worked with standing just outside the cell. They were all dressed for duty and Felix looked down at Annette, his brain still trying to catch up on what exactly was going on. 

“You recruited a bunch of Marines to come bust me out of jail?”

Annette gave him a shyer smile and stepped a tiny bit further away from him. “Well, technically I recruited them to do a little more than just break you out, but that’s pretty much correct.”

Felix didn’t think. He was stepping forward before his brain caught up with his body. He reached out, cupped Annette’s face in his hands, and kissed her _hard_. She tensed against him, but after a brief second, she leaned into the kiss until they were both breathless. Felix pulled back, still holding Annette by her face and watched as she blushed as red as her hair. 

One of the Marines coughed and Felix dropped his hands down, feeling a little embarrassed himself. Annette, though still bright red in the face, slid one of her hands into his and he looked back down at her. 

“Right, well, what’s happening?” Felix asked. 

“Prince Dimitri and the Alliance are on their way to Earth. I sent him a comm after the meeting and they’re coming to Earth!” Annette explained quickly. 

Felix’s mind spun. Dimitri was coming back and he was bringing the entire Alliance. “I’m going to need a much better explanation than that, but what the hell is their plan once they get here? Cornelia has control of all of Earth’s sensors and weapons. The minute she sees any ships on any of Earth’s radars, she’ll blast them, especially if they’re not loudly and proudly broadcasting UEN transponder codes. 

“Which,” one of the Marines interrupted, “is why you need to get transponder codes for them. We’re going to create chaos for the Security Council while you two get the codes to His Highness.”

With those words said, the Marines offered their last nods to Felix and Annette before they disappeared out of Felix’s view, off to, as they put it, create chaos. Felix looked back at Annette and narrowed his eyes. 

“How the hell did you get Marines to listen to you and help you?”

“I played them the transmission,” she said simply. “It also helps that I pointed out you were being wrongly imprisoned and that my father was most of their CO at some point or another.”

Felix shook his head. “Right, well, we can worry about the rest of this later. Do you have a plan as to how we’re supposed to get transponder codes to the Alliance before they get within range of Earth’s defence systems?”

Annette nodded and pulled out two comms: one of which was Felix’s. He took it from her as she pulled up something on her own comm. “I had the idea to use my access to look to see who would have access to this kind of thing and you’ll never guess what I found.”

“Isn’t it only high ranking military and Security Council members who have that type of clearance? The trick we pulled with Andre’s ID isn’t going to work again.”

Annette shook her head. “No, it won’t, but we do have someone’s ID which will work.”

Felix frowned. “What?”

“Your father’s,” Annette explained. 

Felix scowled. “They would have long deleted my father’s ID, Annette, that won’t work.”

“Except,” she countered, turning her comm towards him, “that they haven’t. Cornelia was in such a rush to get Admiral Irebrand installed in your father’s place that she didn’t finish removing all traces of him from the system.”

Felix’s hand snapped to his neck where he was wearing his father’s and brother’s dog tags. He ran his thumb over the one engraved with his father’s name and exhaled shakily. “We’ll only be able to send the codes from the broadcast centre.”

“Yes,” Annette agreed. “I also thought that would be the perfect time to send out a transmission explaining what happened with the vote for Victoria.”

Felix nodded. “Okay. Well, let’s go.”

He gripped her hand tighter and pulled her out of the cell, looking both ways as he exited. The private guards that Cornelia hired were slumped, unconscious, against the walls and Felix smirked to himself. They may have been hired goons, but the UEMC soldiers were the best fighters on the planet. 

He led Annette out of Holding towards a lift that would lead them to the broadcast centre. She scanned her palm to use her clearance to get the lift running and send them racing towards the top of the UEK Headquarters. When the lift doors opened, Felix immediately scanned the area for guards. There were four of them, all armed, but only two bore decorations that marked them as Cornelia’s goons. He stepped out of the lift and dropped Annette’s hand. 

“What are you doing here?” one of the non-Cornelia-bankrolled guards demanded. “This is a restricted level!”

Felix didn’t hesitate: he immediately threw himself at the nearest guard bearing Cornelia’s decorations. The guard didn’t even have time to draw his weapon before Felix was on top of him, driving his elbow into the guard’s stomach. The man buckled and Felix snagged the baton from his belt, cracking it across his skull and sending him to the ground in a heap. 

Annette yelped, but Felix didn’t have time to worry about if she was smart enough to take cover. The other guards weren’t stupid enough not to draw their weapons at this point and Felix leapt from the guard he’d taken down behind the check-in desk as bullets popped and fired in his direction. He took a breath to gather himself and shrug off the pain lingering in his legs and back before he made his move. 

He threw the chair over the desk in the direction of the two normal guards and then leapt out of the cover and tackled the third. He hit the man in the legs and they crashed to the ground together. Felix batted his gun aside and struck him across the head with the baton so he went limp. He snatched the fallen weapon and turned to the other two guards who were staring at him with their guns raised. 

“My name is Sergeant Felix Fraldarius and I’m here to deliver a message on behalf of His Highness Prince Dimitri. I need access to the broadcast centre and I _will_ kill you to get it. Make a smart decision.” 

One of the guard’s guns dipped. “You’re the one that the Secretary-General had arrested, right?”

Felix gave a short, affirmative nod. 

The guard shook his head and dropped his gun to the ground, kicking it towards Felix. “Long live His Highness.”

The other guard hesitated for only another second before he also dropped his weapon. Felix lowered his own commandeered gun and turned back towards the lift as Annette peeked out from the side of the lift, completely unharmed. 

“Come on,” he beckoned to her. 

Together they quickly made their way into the command centre of the broadcast centre, much to the surprise of the three employees working in the office. Felix pulled out his comm and pulled up the copy of his father’s ID that he had saved. He stepped around one of the centre’s managers and tapped it on the console, scanning the access. 

He quickly tapped in the commands to create new UEN transponder codes that registered as routine ships granted access to both low orbit around Earth as well as landing permissions in New York. Annette handed him her comm and he scanned Dimitri’s written request, creating the correct number and attaching them to a tightbeam transmission and hitting send. 

Annette grabbed his hand and squeezed it tightly. “Now they can get here.” 

Felix looked at the radio and computers in front of him and then looked at one of the other people in the room. “Can you broadcast to all UEK services using this?”

“Yes,” the man admitted, seeming shaken. 

Felix looked at Annette. “If I do this, Cornelia will know exactly where we are and what we’ve done. I don’t know what her response will be, but I imagine it won’t be pretty.”

Annette nodded. “Do it. They deserve to know what’s been happening.”

Felix waved the man over. “Set me up to broadcast to everyone.”

The man nodded shortly and reached past Felix to tap a few buttons on the console. A moment later and all of the comms in the room chirped as the universal UEK broadcast went live. Felix took a deep breath. He wasn’t the orator that Dimitri or Sylvain was or even the leader that Ingrid was, but he had a job to do. 

“People of the United Earth Kingdom. My name is Felix Hugo Fraldarius. As I speak to you, everything is about to change. Our Security Council, the ones we place in charge of our planet, are leading us into a blood-filled, unnecessary war out of their own self-interest. Councilmember Andre Gautier authorized the strike on Victoria knowing full well that there was a chance it could kill his own son who was taken captive on Mars. Cornelia had me arrested when I brought her a miracle: a declaration from Prince Dimitri asking us to end the war.”

Annette tapped his arm and leaned in to whisper something to him. “I just checked those codes and we have four ships in orbit and one making its way down to land in New York as we speak. They’ll be landing shortly and there are no Earthen target locks on them.”

Felix nodded and focused back on his broadcast. “Cornelia Arnim will not take lightly to this message, but you deserve to know the truth.”

He swiped something on his comm and set Dimitri’s message to play over the broadcast. As it played, there was a crashing sound behind them and Felix grabbed Annette’s hand.

“They’re here,” he said quietly to her. 

Annette steeled her expression and tightened her grip on his hand in return. 


	21. Twenty-One - Burning Quake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prince Dimitri arrives home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is, the unofficial end of the Earth arc. It's fitting that this chapter is both the longest chapter so far and the one to push this fic over 100k words. Thanks to everyone who has been here with me since the start and to those who hopped on partway. I appreciate all the support and I hope you enjoy the first of a few major climactic moments!

Twenty-One - Burning Quake

* * *

**SHUTTLECRAFT, MARS AO**

Ingrid probably could have flown the small shuttle herself, but when the Martian Navy Captain, Ferdinand, offered to take the craft up, she was content to position herself at the back of the ship where she could run diagnostics on her power armour. It was remarkably well maintained for something that had been seized weeks ago all the way back in Victoria. 

Sylvain sat next to her, mostly quiet, but he would occasionally exchange words with Dorothea. Ingrid twisted a value on the arm of her suit, adjusting her loading mechanism and a canister clicked into place, correcting the misalignment she had noticed when she had first donned the armour. 

She paused in her work and glanced at Dorothea. “Thank you for bringing me my armour,” she said. 

Dorothea nodded. “I figured it might be both a nice gesture and also an advantage for what’s coming up.”

“Speaking of,” Sylvain said, cutting in, “you did never tell us exactly what we’ve gotten ourselves into on Mars and why you broke us out to do it.”

Dorothea sighed. “You know what I told you about the fact that we didn’t blow up the UEN Fhirdiad? Well, I believe that Arundel, Edelgard’s uncle, was behind that. I also happen to have stumbled across information that has led me to believe that Deimos was his base of operations.”

Ingrid dismissed the specs of her suit on her comm and narrowed her eyes. “So we’re going to raid his base of operations? The four of us?”

Dorothea shook her head. “Not exactly. From what I understand, everything there was being shut down and moved to Selene. We should find an empty workshop, but I want to know if anything was left behind.”

Sylvain raised a hand, frowning. “Hold on, Selene? Like Earth’s moon Selene? What’s the guy who tried to kill the UEK Prince doing moving into UEK territory?”

Dorothea shook her head. “I have no idea.”

Ingrid rubbed her forehead, feeling the beginning of a headache coming on. “And why can’t you go through your higher-ups to do this? Why did it require breaking us out of captivity to be your backup when you don’t know the first thing about us?”

“Because,” Dorothea explained, “Edelgard is keeping this information a secret. Even her closest allies didn’t know this was happening on our moon. I need to know why. Plus, there’s the whole part where we were holding you captive for, quite frankly, literally no reason. There has been enough innocent death in this war. If I have the chance to prevent more of it, then I’m going to take it.”

“Dorothea,” Ferdinand called suddenly and all three of them looked at the Navy Captain. “There are all sorts of reports going through right now about a battle in Mars’s extended AO that just ended.”

Sylvain stood up. “A battle in Mars’s AO? With who? Earth?”

“No,” Ferdinand said. “That’s what I would have assumed too, but it was apparently against ships transmitting on Alliance frequencies. Mars took down one of their ships but lost two in return. It’s not the battle that’s the interesting part though.”

Ingrid’s eyes widened as she realized where this was going. “The Alliance is going past Mars towards Earth, aren’t they?”

Sylvain looked at Ingrid, looking surprised. “The Alliance? The same people who, if the information you’ve shared with us,” he directs at Dorothea, “is correct, have been liberating Earthen and Martian colonies? Why are they going to Earth?”

Ingrid grabbed Sylvain’s arm and squeezed, feeling herself smile. “Because I bet Dimitri is with them.”

Sylvain’s eyes widened. “You think so?”

She nodded. “I do.”

His lips curled into a small smile and Ingrid almost totally forgot about where she was for a moment because she was so momentarily caught off guard by how nice it was to see Sylvain smile genuinely. 

She tore her eyes off of him and turned back to Dorothea. “So, Deimos, we’ve got to be close, right?”

Dorothea walked over and leaned over the flight controls next to Ferdinand, reading the navigation log. “Ferdie?”

“I’m about to start bringing us down, so you should strap that armour in and get strapped in yourselves,” he said. 

Ingrid nodded and turned to her power armour, folding it back down to the size where it would fit in its storage crate and then she pulled the cargo straps around it, anchoring it in place. She turned and sat next to Sylvain, pulling her own harness down over her head, securing her own restraints. 

Sylvain reached over and took her hand, linking their fingers together in an odd parallel of when they had left Earth all that time ago to come to Mars in the first place. Ingrid tightened her grip on his hand and gritted her teeth as the intense g-force gripped the shuttle as it descended to Deimos’s surface. 

As soon as the ship stopped moving, Ingrid untangled her hand from Sylvain’s and freed herself from the straps. She stepped on the launch lever for her power armour and it unfolded itself, opening up so that she could suit up. She rotated her wrists in her gauntlets and sealed the suit shut.

Inside her armour, she felt at ease. It was familiar and strong and protective and it made her much less like the helpless girl she’d felt like the whole time they were on Mars. Instead, she felt like the soldier she was trained to be. 

“Ready?” Sylvain asked. 

She nodded, smiling at him through the helmet of her suit. “Yeah.”

Sylvain spun the gun he’d been given in his hands and grinned back. Dorothea and Ferdinand, both decked out in Martian combat gear, stepped up next to him. The three of them would don vac shells until they were inside the station, but Ingrid’s armour was all the protection she needed. 

Ferdinand lowered the hatch on the ship and Ingrid led the way out, holding up her arm cannon defensively. True to Dorothea’s prediction, the landing pad where they’d touched down just outside the research station was completely abandoned and judging by the fuel scarring in the metal landing pads, Ingrid guessed it had been several days since there was a ship here. 

Keeping her guard up, she led the way across the landing pad to the exterior doors of the research station. Dorothea stepped around her when they reached the doors, fiddling with the access port next to them. After a moment, the doors hissed open, revealing the airlock. Ingrid stepped in and was followed by the other three. 

Ferdinand activated the airlock, pressurizing the entranceway and then he removed the helmet of the vac shell. Dorothea and Sylvain followed suit and Ingrid pulled up the holo display on the right arm of her suit, tapping the controls until her helmet receded as well. Once they were all set, Ferdinand drew his weapon and opened the door on the other side of the airlock, waving them all through. 

Ingrid took the lead again, stepping out of cover into the empty hallway. The hall reminded her of any number of research stations that she had visited on Selene or Pallas or even Ganymede: metal walls and floors that were polished steel. The lights overhead were on, but they flickered occasionally which put Ingrid on guard. It could have meant that the station was abandoned or just that someone was trying to give the impression that it was abandoned. 

Slowly, they advanced down the hall, Ingrid in the lead, followed by Ferdinand and then Sylvain with Dorothea taking up the rear. When they reached the door at the end of the hall, Ingrid waved for everyone to be quiet as she tried to listen. She couldn’t hear anything beyond the door, besides a gentle beeping of a computer. 

She nodded and Dorothea shifted around Ferdinand and Sylvain, working on the access port until the door slid open. Ingrid lifted her arm cannon, turned on her flashlight and stepped into the room. The room was completely dark and quiet aside from the beeping she had heard earlier.

Slowly, she panned her flashlight across the room, scanning for any signs of hostility or life. Her flashlight reflected off what were probably more than a dozen computer monitors and a few empty lab benches decorated with various glassware pieces, but there were no people present. She stepped forward and turned up the brightness on her flashlight as she slowly approached the one computer that seemed to be on. 

As she moved into the room, the others moved to follow her, Sylvain stepping to her side. Ingrid stared down at the computer that was on, but it seemed to be locked to a home screen that she had no idea how to bypass without a log-in and password. 

The lights overhead flickered on and Ingrid turned her flashlight off, looking over her shoulder to see that Ferdinand had found the controls for the lights in the room. 

“I suppose that answers my question on whether or not there is still operational power to the station,” Dorothea said as she wandered between rows of powered-down monitors. 

“What is all of this?” Sylvain asked, looking between the two Martians. 

Ferdinand lifted a beaker from one of the lab benches and frowned. “I’m not sure. This place is a state-approved research station, but none of this stuff,” he gestured to the monitors, “is Martian-made.”

Ingrid frowned. “It isn’t?”

Sylvain nodded. “No, you’re right. Look, Ingrid,” he said, tapping the logo at the bottom of the console in front of her. “This is an Earthen tech company based out of Tokyo.”

“What’s the deal with that computer?” Dorothea called. “It looks like these ones have all been fried and shut down. There’s probably nothing we can do with them.”

“It has power, but I can’t get into it. Maybe you can try?”

“I don’t know,” Dorothea replied. “I’m lucky enough to have been able to get past the outside locks. Computer stuff isn’t my specialty.”

“Do you know someone who could get in remotely? Someone that you trust?” Sylvain asked. 

Ingrid watched Ferdinand and Dorothea have a silent staring contest where it looked like they were having a completely wordless disagreement. It lasted for a few seconds before Ferdinand walked over to the computer. Ingrid stepped back, letting him have space and he pulled out a disposable, temporary comm and scanned it on the port of the computer. 

“Bernadetta is the best we know. She’ll get through.”

Dorothea sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “I know she can, but I don’t want to put her in a tight spot with Edelgard.”

Ingrid glanced at Sylvain. She still wasn’t totally sure why the Martians had broken them out, even if they said they needed back-up to investigate Deimos. Dorothea seemed ready enough to turn on the Emperor, but it was still confusing to see that she had wrangled a Navy Captain in with her. Although, if the way that he looked at Dorothea indicated anything, it made a little more sense.

For now, though, they just had to wait to see if this Bernadetta could get through to whatever was hidden on the computer.

* * *

**SPACESHIP AILELL, EARTH’S AO**

Claude leaned over the console, frowning. “Any shifts in UEK defences?”

“No,” Marianne replied. “The Seiros is still cleared to land. Just over five minutes.”

Claude nodded and rubbed a hand over the side of his mouth. “Make sure we’re locked just in case we need to fire to cover them. They have to get to the ground.”

“We’re in the position to intercept if we need to,” Hilda confirmed, patting his arm reassuringly. 

Claude sighed. “We can be in position, but if we get distracted even for a second, it’s over and we’re all dead.”

The ship jolted suddenly between them and Claude gripped the console to prevent himself from falling over. Hilda grabbed onto his arm and almost brought him to the ground anyways, but she was small enough that he managed to keep them both standing on their feet. He looked at Ignatz, the main pilot of the Ailell and saw the panicked expression on his face. 

Claude frowned. He slid his hand on the edge of the console in front of him, bringing up a map of Earth’s AO with the four Alliance ships highlighted in yellow. The Sauin had already sustained damage on its way through Mars’s AO when they had run into a few Martian patrol ships. Thankfully, they had dispatched the Martians quickly and efficiently and continued on schedule towards Earth, but one of their external engines was no longer operational. 

“What’s happening?” he asked. 

Lysithea stood from her chair to stand at the opposite side of the console from Claude and she quickly typed in something on her comm and changed the display. Five blue dots blinked in around the Sauin and the Dagda that were too small to be ships, but large enough that apparently they were picking up on scanners. 

Claude narrowed his eyes and leaned forward. “What are those?”

“Missiles,” Lysithea answered. “They just appeared on radar out of nowhere and the Dagda and Sauin are both taking evasive maneuvers to try and avoid and destroy them.” She frowned. “They weren’t transmitting at all right up until they appeared.”

Claude clenched his fist on the edge of the console. “Stealth tech,” he muttered. “Martian or Earthen?”

Hilda tilted her head and studied the display. She pointed at the lines of code at the bottom of the holo and the transmission tag at the front of each missile’s transponder code. “Those aren’t Martian codes. They’ve got to be Earthen then, right?”

“Fuck,” he grumbled. “Alright, Ignatz, get us into a position where we can take out those missiles and help out the others.”

“We’ll lose sights on the Seiros if we do,” Marianne said, looking up from the scanner pointed towards Earth’s surface.

Claude pressed his lips together but nodded. “The Earthens are on their own now. We’re an Alliance and we’re going to take care of our own. Dimitri and Byleth are smart. Keep a channel open to them so we can coordinate with them once they land, but our priority is the Sauin and the Dagda.”

Claude pushed down on his heels to engage the grav magnetism of his boots and he watched the open channel to the Seiros blink open on the main display. He flicked his hand, enlarging it and watched as the light turned from orange to green, indicating that it was active. 

“Ailell to Seiros, we’re turning our sights off of you to assist the Dagda and Sauin. You’re unprotected now,” Claude reported. 

There was a brief pause before the line crackled and a response came through. 

“ _No need to worry_ _about us,_ ” Byleth said over the transmission. “ _We’re deploying for landing now. It looks like we’re going to have a welcoming party, but no shots fired yet._ ”

Claude exchanged a look with Hilda. It was only expected that there would be UEK soldiers ready to meet the Seiros when it landed. For now, they could only hope that Dimitri’s presence would cause enough confusion that there wouldn’t be any violence on the surface. 

“Alright, you heard them. They’re fine. Let’s take aim at those missiles. Marianne, tell the Dagda to rise into high orbit to give a bit more space between them and us and we’ll lock CQ’s onto the missiles.”

Ignatz turned his hands on the flight controls and the Ailell began to turn slowly to his touch. Claude saw Hilda and Lysithea both rock back, activating their own grav boots as the ship’s gravity was momentarily thrown off in its movement. 

“Alright,” Ignatz said, “I have a lock on two of the targets. Dagda’s clear of our range too.”

Claude tapped the red icon on the console in front of him to deploy the first of the two loaded CQ canisters. There was a beeping noise before the holo display showed the spray of bullets fire from the Ailell, colliding with and detonating two of the missiles being tracked on their radar. 

“Readjust,” Claude directed. He tapped the comm line to the Sauin. “Sauin, take the right one and then pull back into higher orbit so we can hit the last two.” 

“Hold on,” Ignatz called and then the Ailell jerked and spun around. 

Claude nearly lost his balance again, staggering a bit and gripping the console to stay upright. Lysithea and Hilda were both not so lucky as they both ended up tumbling to the ground. Claude reached down and grabbed Hilda’s arm, hauling his friend back to her feet. 

Petra sprung out of the chair she was seated in, activated her grav boots, and pulled Lysithea up in one smooth motion. She stood next to Lysithea and stared at the holo display, crossing her arms. 

“We are targeting the last few missiles, yes?”

Claude still wasn’t sure what to make of Petra. She was headstrong and dedicated, but she also seemed to genuinely care about every person that she met. She seemed like a good match to Ashe, the UEN pilot with a gentle soul. She had been firm, but fair in her demands for Hygiea amidst the Alliance and Claude was hopeful that she would take her grandfather’s place on the Council. 

“Yes,” Claude confirmed. He swiped a few things to facilitate the reloading of the firing mechanisms and then he rotated the edge of the console, spinning the holo over to Petra. “Do you want to do the honours?”

She smiled. “I am honoured,” she said and then pushed the fire command, launching the next set of bullets from the Ailell towards the stealth missiles that had been circling the Dagda. 

Claude watched on the display as two more of the missiles blinked out of existence as they exploded. The yellow dot that was marked “Sauin” withdrew to the same height as the Dagda was currently orbiting at and then the last of the five stealth missiles were destroyed. Claude let out a small breath of relief. 

He looked at Lysithea. “Take the signals we picked up. Find out where they launched from if you can. Ignatz, get us back into position over New York. Marianne, try to re-establish contact with the Seiros. I want to know how everything is going down.”

Lysithea quickly spun away from the centre console, making her way to a smaller monitor where she could work on decoding the transponder codes in peace. Marianne fiddled with something on her own monitor and then the transmission line to the Seiros blinked back into existence on the central holo. 

“Ailell to Seiros,” Claude said. “Dagda and Sauin are safe. How’s the surface?”

There was a loud crackle of static over the line that caused them all to flinch as it echoed across the bridge. 

“ _Seiros is vacant and waiting!_ ” Leonie’s voice came through suddenly. 

Claude frowned. “What’s happening, Leonie?”

“ _Dimitri went out to talk and they started firing! We’re pushing forward now. Two Alliance soldiers down and four UEN soldiers down. These guys don’t fight like navy though_ ,” Leonie replied. 

There was a brief pause and the tinny pop of gunfire sounded over the transmission. Claude nudged Hilda and pointed to the holo display in front of them. 

“Can you get us a better view? Individual tracking?” he asked quietly. 

“I’ll try,” she said and set to work on manipulating the display that they were watching. 

“Who’s moving in?” Claude asked, redirecting his attention to Leonie. 

“ _Byleth, Dimitri, Dedue, Ashe, Mercedes, and I are pushing in. We’re headed to the broadcast centre first_ ,” Leonie said back. “ _I have to drop the line now, we’re entering transmission-blocked areas_.”

Claude didn’t even get the chance to wish them a last bit of luck before the line went dead. His lips quirked into a small smirk as Hilda continued adjusting the display until they had a 3-D projection of an overhead view of the landing pad and entrance to the UEK Headquarters. 

“Well,” Claude said, looking around the bridge at the members of his Alliance. “I guess now all we can do is wait, right?”

* * *

**NEW YORK CITY, EARTH**

It was strange to feel real gravity and to breathe real, unfiltered air. It was also strange to be shot at by men and women who were wearing UEK colours. 

Byleth grabbed his arm before he could step out from behind a pillar and Dimitri stumbled, bumping their chests together. There was a spew of gunfire from behind them as Dedue covered their backs, and then Byleth nudged him out of cover. 

Dimitri was holding a weapon, but he hadn’t fired it even once. Even from the moment that the soldiers on the landing pad had opened fire at him and Byleth, Dimitri had not wanted to shoot back. These people were Earthens. They were his people. He had had enough of the violence that Cornelia was perpetuating. 

Leonie, a member of Claude’s inner circle and a former UEN sailor, led the way across the lobby as they sprinted for the elevators. Dimitri tried to not to look at the fallen UEN soldiers who had been shooting at them that his friends had killed. He was only thankful that the unarmed and unprotected people who normally were in the UEK headquarters seemed to have cleared out, noticing the blatant danger. 

When they reached the lift, everyone looked towards Dimitri. 

“Broadcast centre,” Dimitri repeated. “Felix will need assistance. We can go to the Council after.”

They had picked up Felix’s broadcast shortly after entering Earth’s atmosphere upon their descent and Dimitri was both proud of his old friend and incredibly worried. He knew that Cornelia would probably do anything she could to silence Felix now, which meant that Felix was in serious danger. 

Dimitri reached forward and scanned his palm on the access port, granting them unrestricted access and then he keyed in the code that would take them to the broadcast centre. He tapped his hand against his thigh over the plate of the protective armour he was wearing as the lift rose. 

He was accompanied by Leonie, Dedue, Ashe, Mercedes, and Byleth. Dedue, Ashe, and he had all hit the ground moving, used to Earth’s gravity. Byleth and Mercedes had struggled more than Leonie, but the dire atmosphere made for a necessarily quick adjustment. 

“Dimitri, behind me,” Dedue said, moving towards the doors. 

Dimitri frowned. “No, you’re still injured, you do not need to shield me.”

“We don’t know what we’re going to find up here. You must survive,” Dedue insisted. 

While they argued, Dimitri saw Byleth shift out of the corner of his eye, but he was too slow to stop her as she slid under Dedue’s outstretched arm, raising her weapon, and stepped out of the lift as soon as it stopped moving. He pushed past Dedue after her and stepped into the broadcast centre.

Dimitri froze almost immediately, staring at the completely destroyed room. Furniture was overturned and peppered with bullet holes and there were half a dozen crumpled bodies on the ground, scattered through the room. There was a Marine standing at the entrance to the command centre who jolted and raised his gun as they entered. 

“Stop!” a familiar voice cut in and someone shoved past the Marine, pushing his gun down. “That’s the Prince, you idiot.”

A weight lifted off of Dimitri’s shoulders as Felix walked in. He was bleeding from a cut on his face and he was scowling, but he was alive. Dimitri hardly registered that he was moving until he was pulling his old friend into a tight hug. Felix, surprisingly, hugged him back just as fiercely but didn’t seem interested in drawing out the contact as he shoved Dimitri back shortly afterwards. 

Dimitri laughed and looked his friend up and down. “I thought Cornelia would have been all over you by now?”

Felix scoffed. “She tried,” he grunted, waving to the bodies around the room. Pride glinted in his eyes as he continued, “But, she underestimated the kind of loyalty that Marines have to one another and to the actual leader of this planet.”

Dimitri looked at the other Marine. “You’ve turned on Cornelia.”

The man nodded. “She sent a squad of us up here, with some goons of her own private employ, to take out Sergeant Fraldarius. We just made the decision to remove her pawns from the equation instead.”

Dimitri nodded. “Thank you for your loyalty, Marine.” He clapped a hand on Felix’s shoulder and took a deep breath. “It’s good to see you, Felix.”

Felix looked like he was going to snap in response, but Dimitri was more than used to seeing past Felix’s prickly defences to the genuine relief in his friend’s face. “Yeah,” he muttered. 

“Felix?”

Dimitri looked past his friend to the petite redheaded woman that was emerging from the command centre. He recognized her as Annette Dominic, the woman who had comm’d him when Felix had been arrested. Dimitri straightened up and nodded to her. 

“Miss Dominic,” he greeted. “Your father was a close ally of mine. Thank you for everything you’ve done.”

Annette gave him a wavering smile in return and a short bow. “It’s my honour to serve my country.”

“Alright,” Felix cut in, stepping between Dimitri and Annette. “That's enough formal bullshit, we need to go after Cornelia, _now_.”

Dimitri nodded. “Right. Where would she be?”

Felix pushed past Dimitri, already heading towards the lift. “Where do you think?” he reflected. 

The Council Chamber was his first guess. It was a fair assumption given that she would likely try to surround herself with as many supporters as she could which could be accomplished quite easily by holing herself and the rest of the Security Council up in the Council Chamber. 

“Let’s go,” Dimitri agreed, following Felix towards the lift. 

Felix paused in front of Dimitri’s entourage and quickly assessed them. He obviously recognized Dedue and Ashe and his eyes narrowed a bit as he took in Mercedes, Byleth, and Leonie. Dimitri put a hand on Felix’s shoulder. 

“They’re friends. Alliance and UEK,” he explained shortly. 

Felix gave a curt nod and stepped into the lift, waiting for everyone else to follow. It was then that Dimitri noticed the black and silver mechanical braces strapped around Felix’s legs and he hesitated, his gaze catching. Felix scowled and just folded his arms. 

“Don’t,” he growled, shutting down the conversation before it could even occur. 

Annette slid past Dimitri and onto the lift next to Felix. She wasn’t wearing combat gear and she didn’t have a weapon, but she looked fiercely determined as she took her place at Felix’s side. Felix didn’t seem opposed to her presence, so Dimitri figured that that was enough to vouch for her. 

“Dimitri,” Byleth said, catching his arm before he could step back onto the lift. “Should we leave someone here to hold the centre? If we have broadcast capability, then Cornelia doesn’t.”

“I’ll stay,” Leonie volunteered. “This way I can send a clear transmission to Claude and the others on the Ailell, Dagda, and Sauin.” She looked around the room at the group of UEMC soldiers as well as their own group. “You should take as many hands as you can.”

Dimitri nodded. “Thank you, Leonie. We’ll comm you when we’ve secured the Council Chamber.” He turned to the four Marines that were waiting for instructions. “Take the next lift down and follow us. We’ll need the extra hands.” 

The Marines offered him various salutes and Dimitri stepped onto the lift with Felix. Byleth, Dedue, and Mercedes followed him on and Dimitri scanned his palm, activating it, as he called for the High-Security level where the Council Chamber was located. 

As the lift descended, Felix broke the silence. “What’s your plan?”

“Arrest Cornelia and Myson Irebrand and regain control of my council,” Dimitri explained. 

Felix and Annette exchanged a look and Dimitri frowned. 

“What?” he asked.

“You should arrest Andre Gautier as well,” Felix said firmly. “He wrote the override order against my father’s recommendation to attack Victoria, knowing full-well that his actions probably would result in Sylvain’s death.”

Dimitri stiffened, but Byleth spoke before he could. 

“That’s despicable,” she snapped. “What was his play with that?”

“Whatever gives him more power,” Dimitri answered, feeling ill. It was, unfortunately, in character for Andre Gautier. 

The lift doors opened before more could be said on that fact and Dimitri squared his shoulders. They didn’t have much more time to waste. They waited the extra minute for the other Marines to rejoin them and they, at Felix’s silent direction, formed a loose ring around the ground. Dedue took his place at Dimitri’s left hand and Byleth stood at his right side. 

She touched his wrist and nodded to him. The touch was light, fleeting, and reassuring, but it felt like a spark against his skin and Dimitri turned his hand up to graze her fingers with his before she could pull away. There wasn’t time to dwell, however, and they were soon moving towards the Council Chamber. 

The Marines opened fire at the two soldiers standing guard outside the room and Dimitri’s stomach twisted and he felt guilty.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Dimitri,” Dedue said before the Marines could answer. He was kneeling next to one of the soldiers that had been shot down and he pointed out the insignia that was embroidered on the breast of the armour that the men were wearing. “They’re not UEK. They’re private paramilitary.”

Dimitri exhaled, the grief loosening in his stomach. They were just more hired thugs. He could not, for the sake of his planet, feel bad for removing them from the occasion. “Right,” he said. 

Dimitri turned away from the fallen guards to the room before him and pushed the doors to the Council Chamber open. He stepped inside and was mildly surprised that he wasn’t shot down where he stood. 

In the room, the members of the Council were all seated around the usual table and there were three Marines and four more paramilitary guards inside the chamber. As Dimitri stood in the threshold of the room, all of the Council members except for Cornelia rose to their feet. 

“Your Highness!” Valen Galatea exclaimed. “You’re _alive_.”

The sheer disbelief in his tone made Dimitri frown. He stepped forward, letting the rest of his group join him as he fixed his gaze on Cornelia. 

“Yes. As I said in the transmission that was played for you by Sergeant Fraldarius, I am alive and well. However, given the reaction of the Council and the story that was recounted to me by Sergeant Fraldarius, I no longer believe that the fate of this planet is safe in the hands of some of the people who are present in this room.”

He waved to the Marines around him to move forward. 

“Take Admiral Irebrand into custody,” he instructed. 

None of the paramilitary soldiers attempted to stop the Marines as two of them grabbed Admiral Irebrand, pulling him back from the table. Dimitri turned to Andre Gautier and narrowed his eyes at Sylvain’s father. 

“Andre,” he said coolly.

Sylvain’s father didn’t flinch, lifting his chin and staring down Dimitri. “It’s a relief you are alright, Your Highness. We were quite worried about you.”

Dimitri frowned. “No, I don’t imagine that’s true. You never did have much regard for loyalty to the crown, the planet, or even your own family.” His lip curled. “Arrest Andre Gautier. He will be tried for treason alongside Myson Irebrand and Cornelia Arnim.”

When he said Cornelia’s name, the paramilitary soldiers all moved for their weapons at once, but Dedue, Byleth, and Felix were more than ready and they didn’t even have the chance to draw before they were shot. 

Cornelia finally rose to her feet and smiled coldly at Dimitri. “You know, Your Highness. This would have been a lot easier if you had just decided to stay dead.”

“I disagree,” he said. “Because then I would have left you and your minions in charge of my planet where you would continue to lead us into a needless war and kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people.”

She laughed shortly. “You’re not really naive enough to blame this war on me, are you, Your Highness? After all, Mars’s Emperor was the one to declare war on us and you and your father were the ones who let tensions reach such an extreme point with Mars in the first place.”

Dimitri’s hand twitched towards his own weapon. “You’ve lost Cornelia. Your game is over. I’ll never let you have a voice in this room ever again.”

Cornelia rolled her eyes, seemingly unimpressed with his threat. She studied the group that had come with Dimitri, her eyes lingering on Felix and Annette, and then catching completely on Byleth. Curiosity split her indifferent expression. 

“So Thales was right,” she said, still staring at Byleth.

Dimitri frowned. “What are you talking about? Who is Thales?”

Cornelia’s smile grew wicked. “That’s unimportant, _Your Highness_ ,” she said. His title sounded poisonous in her mouth and Dimitri was moving before he really knew what his body was doing. 

He drew his gun at the same time that Cornelia brought up a weapon of her own and they both fired. Dimitri’s shot caught Cornelia in the chest and she stumbled back, her gun clattering to the table. Somehow, Cornelia seemed to have missed Dimitri entirely. Cornelia collapsed back into her chair, clutching at her wound. 

“Well played, Your Highness,” she conceded weakly as she coughed, blood spilling between her fingers. 

“Was it worth it? Taking the shot?” he asked, stepping closer to her. “You could have lived.”

“Silly Princeling,” she scoffed. “I wasn’t aiming for you.”

Dimitri’s lips parted and he spun back around just in time to see Byleth collapse to the ground. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is probably a list of people who are going to be very, very mad at me for ending it that way, but I have no regrets. After the scene in Chapter 5, this last scene is another I've had planned right from the very start, down to Cornelia's last line. 
> 
> I'm on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/nicolewrites37) if you want to yell and I'll see you all back here next Sunday ;)


	22. Twenty-Two - Familiar Scenery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deimos gives answers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm early again because I have a Day to deal with tomorrow. Not going to lie, I'm pretty sure I've updated more often on Saturday than Sunday at this point, but that's not a bad thing. It's Sunday somewhere, right?

Twenty-Two - Familiar Scenery

* * *

**DEIMOS RESEARCH STATION, DEIMOS**

“Got it,” Dorothea said suddenly, startling Sylvain out of his thoughts. 

He turned towards the Martian Spy as she reached forward, tapping a comm against the computer terminal for the active computer in the lab. The terminal beeped and the log-in screen vanished, letting them into the system. Sylvain pushed off of the table he had been leaning against and stepped closer to the computer. 

He slid his hand across the screen, sending the display to the larger holo above it so that it was easier for all of them to see and then pulled up the file directory. Sylvain stared at the dozens and dozens of files that blinked onto the screen until one file name caught his eye. He tapped on it, opening it.

“What is it?” Dorothea asked, frowning at the file he chose. “Luna?”

“It’s Italian for moon,” Sylvain replied immediately. “Since we’re on one of Mars’s moons, it was just a guess.”

The file opened, popping up half a dozen windows of documents that appeared to mostly be shipping and construction manifests, but the surprising part was that they were all stamped with the UEK crest and labelled ‘Selene’.

“These are weaponry requisitions,” Ferdinand said as he studied one of the files. 

“No,” Ingrid said, “these aren’t just weapon requisitions.” She enlarged one of the files and Sylvain studied the file. 

Ferdinand picked it up faster, his eyes widening. “Transmission blockers and remote access with specific heat tracking and silent detonators. These are stealth weapons!”

Sylvain felt sick. “Someone manufactured stealth weaponry on Selene?”

“No, it says it was ordered on Selene, but manufactured here on Deimos,” Ferdinand said, pointing out the manufacturing location at the bottom of the form.

“These are nuclear warheads that are attached to stealth missiles,” Dorothea said. “This is very, very bad news.”

Sylvain scanned a few of the other nearby files. He flagged one that had what he was looking for. “It looks like the weaponry wasn’t where the stealth tech stopped. These are stealth ship plans as well. Small ones, but if this technology works, then that’s more than either Earth or Mars has reported.”

“They’re not Martian,” Ferdinand argued immediately.

Ingrid frowned. “They’re not Earthen, either, so who do they belong to?”

Sylvain pulled up a third file. This one showed a cluster of buildings large enough to be a military complex all with an indicated plating that had the same characteristics as the stealth ships and the stealth weapons. 

“I would bet,” he pointed out, “that they belong to whoever owns this base.”

Dorothea crossed her arms. “So Arundel was working on stealth tech up here. That would explain how he took out the Fhirdiad, but it doesn’t explain his fascination or, rather, his obsession with Edelgard.”

“What do you mean?” Ingrid asked. 

Dorothea pressed her lips together and Sylvain could practically see her considering her options and whether or not she wanted to reveal everything to them. Apparently, they must have proved themselves trustworthy enough that she continued. 

“The Emperor suffers from a unique-onset type of gravity sickness.”

Sylvain blinked. “The condition that Colonists get on Earth because their bodies aren’t accustomed to one-g?”

Dorothea waved her hand in a so-so motion. “Kind of. Except Edelgard’s symptoms are constant and far more intense than the normally treatable symptoms. The only medication that has ever worked successfully on her is a specific treatment manufactured by Arundel’s research team. Edelgard has Linhardt, a friend of ours, trying to replicate it, but he says it’s genetically baffling.”

Sylvain rubbed his jaw, processing. “So she’s dying from gravity sickness even under Martian gravity conditions, but she just evicted the one man who could actually provide her with the treatment that she needs all while in the middle of a war.”

Dorothea nodded. “That’s what I mean when I say all of this,” she pointed to the stealth tech, “doesn’t add up with what we know about Arundel.”

Ingrid clicked something in her gauntlets and the hands of her power armour folded away in a series of shuttering clicks, leaving her unrestrained from the elbow down. She reached out and closed the stealth tech files, returning to the overall directory of the computer system. 

“Let’s try something else then,” she suggested. 

Sylvain looked back at the file names, studying them, eyes narrowed. Most of them were generic project names, but there was another file that caught his eye and he pointed it out. 

“What’s this about Io? That’s a Martian colony, right?” he asked. 

Ferdinand nodded. “Yes, it is.”

Sylvain pulled up the casefiles labelled with ‘Io’. The first thing that popped up was a medical record for a young girl with two photos attached to it. The first had the girl who was probably no older than ten years old with black hair and dark violet eyes, frowning at whoever had captured her image. The second photo was the same girl, looking no older, but her eyes were pale pink and her hair bleached white like someone had sucked all the pigment out of her hair and eyes. 

“Subject Antigone shows a remarkable response to treatment. Simulated effects of injection create artificial, but indecipherable symptoms of gravity sickness without the need for intense g-force. Treatable with standard gravity sickness medication to a mild extent,” Sylvain read out loud. 

“Serum needs refinement before secondary phases but should be ready for necessary deployment to Subject Atalanta after relocation from Earth,” Dorothea continued. 

“If this girl is Antigone,” Sylvain said, pointing at the two images of the young girl, “then who was Atalanta?”

“Filter the files by Atalanta,” Ingrid suggested. 

Dorothea nodded and quickly keyed in that command until a second medical report popped up. Sylvain stared at the image of the young woman on the screen who appeared to be in her early teens with ashy brown hair and deep violet eyes. Again, there was a second picture attached of the same girl with bleached hair and eyes. Ferdinand’s breath caught audibly when he studied the pictures. 

“No,” he murmured disbelievingly. 

“Ferdie?” Dorothea prompted. 

He pointed at the image. “That’s Edelgard. She’s probably thirteen or fourteen there, but that’s her.” He frowned. “She spent a period of time as a child on Earth and when she returned from there, that’s what her hair looked like. She has always claimed that she began to suffer from gravity sickness while on Earth which is why she returned to Mars when she did and cited the gravity sickness meds as why her hair became white.”

“I guess we know who Atalanta is now,” Ingrid murmured. “So these people, whoever they really are, tested this serum on a girl on Io before they used it against the Emperor. That would answer your question about why they were so obsessed with Edelgard, wouldn’t it?” she asked Dorothea. 

Dorothea looked mildly ill. “Yes, I guess it would explain that.” She lifted a hand and pointed to the record’s date. “The date lines up too.”

Dorothea dismissed the reports, leaving them staring at the file directory. Sylvain took a deep breath, processing all the information that they had learned. 

“So,” he began, “this Arundel guy both genetically manipulated your Emperor and also created actual, workable stealth tech which he then used to blow up the UEN Fhirdiad in an attempt to kill the UEK Prince. It still doesn’t explain the actual war or what his endgame is from any of it.”

“I disagree,” Ferdinand said. “While Edelgard did have deniability about killing the UEK Prince, it was always Arundel’s intention to start the war. Maybe it was just a means to testing this stealth tech, but in giving it to only one side of the war, he created a power imbalance which forced Mars to rely on him.”

Ingrid nodded. “Earth, in a war of attrition, would outlast Mars, but with the advantage that working stealth tech gives them, Mars has a chance of winning the war, or at least destabilizing Earth as much as possible.”

“Edelgard only couped the Martian Parliament because it was run by a bunch of corrupt men who were only in it for the money. They were the kind of men who were exactly the type to be manipulated by their own greed by Arundel. Edelgard took his power away and he used his stealth tech to push her back under his thumb,” Dorothea continued. 

Sylvain smacked his forehead. “Holy fuck, Ingrid, my _father_ .” She frowned at him and he sighed. “My father is a member of the Security Council on Earth, obviously, but before I had left to come on this mission I had noticed, funnily enough, some strangeness to his finances and those of the Security Council regarding investments on Selene. I would bet, if you check those records against those that voted for the destruction of Victoria, that you would find a perfect match.” 

“If he’s behind whatever is happening on Selene, whatever strings Arundel was pulling on Mars, he has just as many on Earth,” Ingrid finished. She looked conflicted and Sylvain knew it was her contrasting sense of pride for their planet warring with her disgust for their nation’s actions in the war.

Suddenly, the computer in front of them blinked to a black screen as the power cut out abruptly. Dorothea tapped a few things, playing with the console and the comm where she had received the access codes, but it appeared to be a lost cause. She cursed and slammed her hand against the console. 

Ferdinand touched her arm reassuringly and then looked at Ingrid and Sylvain. “We should split up and search the rest of this place. Maybe we’ll find another terminal with more answers.”

Sylvain was hesitant, but Ingrid just nudged him so he stepped back and nodded to the Martians. He followed Ingrid as she led the way through one of the hallways off-shooting the main laboratory. They walked in relative silence with only the flashlight on Ingrid’s power armour to guide them. 

Finally, they reached another set of doors that were closed and seemed to completely be lacking power. Ingrid twisted her wrists and re-engaged her gauntlets before she reached out and pried the doors open using brute force. They screeched a bit, but Sylvain knew they didn’t have many other choices. 

Together, they entered the room. It was much smaller than the previous room, with only one small central console holo and then a small cluster of lab benches that had various sizes of animal cages atop them. 

Before Sylvain could inspect any of the cases, there was a shuttering noise as Ingrid deactivated her power armour, leaving it as a beacon at the entrance of the room. She stepped out of it and Sylvain turned to her. She looked troubled and he reached for her hand without thinking. 

“Ingrid?” he asked quietly. “Are you alright?”

“I don’t know what to believe in anymore, Sylvain,” she admitted quietly. “I’ve spent my whole life fighting for Earth thinking that the people who led our planet were fighting for us too. Were they?”

He stepped closer to her and slid his hand up her arm until he was holding her biceps and looking down at her. “Ingrid,” he said quietly. “You can’t dwell on that. Right now we just have to move forward and hope we’re on the right side here.”

Ingrid took a deep breath. “I’m sorry about your father.”

He shook his head. “Don’t be. At least I have the confirmation I’ve always wanted that my father is a disgusting human being.”

Her eyes softened. “Sylvain,” her voice came out quiet and with remarkable gentleness and something in Sylvain’s chest twisted. 

He was leaning down and closing the gap between their lips before he could think. At first, Ingrid was still against him when he kissed her, but then her hand fisted in his hair, tugging, and he slid an arm around her waist, kissing her harder. He poured every emotion he’d been stamping down since they arrived on Mars into the kiss and hoped that she could feel how much she meant to him. 

Ingrid’s hand kept its tight grip on his hair as she leaned into him for another moment, letting him deepen the kiss, but then she was pulling back, cheeks flushed. She didn’t move away from him and Sylvain fought with the urge to kiss her again. 

“We can,” Ingrid breathed, her gaze flickering to his lips, “talk about that later.”

It took all of his impulse control to drop his hands from her and forcibly step back. He felt like he was buzzing, but he turned away, taking a deep breath as he let out a short laugh. 

“You bet.”

* * *

**NEW YORK CITY, EARTH**

As soon as the strange woman collapsed, Annette lunged for her. She didn’t quite get there before the woman hit the ground, but she rolled her onto her back, searching for the wound inflicted by Cornelia’s dying shot. The other woman, Mercedes, knelt next to Annette and started unfastening the plates of Byleth’s combat armour. 

Annette helped her, her hands trembling as she undid the straps on the right side of Byleth’s chest. Byleth let out a light groan as Mercedes lifted the chest piece free, dropping it beside her. Annette was immediately able to see the wound on Byleth’s stomach, located just below where the breastplate would have protected her, and Mercedes didn’t hesitate. 

Annette watched Mercedes rip open the medical bag slung over her shoulder. She pulled out a wad of cloth and handed it to Annette. Annette stared at it for a moment, unsure what she was supposed to do with it. 

“Put pressure on the wound, please,” Mercedes said, gesturing to Byleth. 

Annette nodded hurriedly and pressed the cloth over the wound. Mercedes uncapped a large needle across from her and then pulled out a pair of scissors, cutting away a large section of Byleth’s undershirt sleeve to expose the inside of her arm. Carefully, with steady hands that Annette envied, Mercedes lined the needle up with the vein on the inside of Byleth’s elbow and pressed the point of it into her skin. 

Annette looked down at her hands where the cloth she was holding was turning red with blood. Her stomach twisted and she took a deep breath, attempting to centre herself. Mercedes shifted, pulling the needle away and then she gently pushed Annette’s hands back as she slowly turned Byleth partly onto her side. 

Byleth groaned, and Mercedes carefully brushed her hand underneath. Annette knew what she was checking for. If there was an exit wound, it would be better. Exit wounds meant that the bullet had less force to do damage with to internal tissue. Mercedes’s fingers came back stained red and Annette let out the breath she was holding. 

“Clean through?”

“Yes,” Mercedes agreed. She looked up at the hulking man above her. “I can’t treat her here, I need surgical supplies and a sterile place to work.”

“Dimitri,” the man said, looking at the UEK Prince who was just watching Byleth’s face, looking incredibly dismayed. “We need access to a med bay.”

Dimitri shook his head, shaking out of the reverie. “Yes, take whatever you need. Do whatever you need.”

Mercedes nodded. “Thank you. Dedue, can you carry her? We can’t wait for a stretcher.”

Dedue knelt across from Annette and slid one arm under Byleth’s knees and the other under her shoulders. He slowly lifted her up and Byleth groaned again as she was shifted. Annette scrambled up, keeping the fabric pressed over the wound. Mercedes reached out to grab Byleth’s hand and curled it over her wound. 

“Stay awake as best you can, Byleth. I’m going to help you, alright?”

The skittish pilot who Annette thought was named Ashe, stepped hurried away from the door, clearing a path for Mercedes and Dedue to leave the room immediately. Dimitri was still staring after them, his expression pained, and Annette bit her lip, worrying it between her teeth. A hand touched her elbow lightly and she jumped, but it was only Felix. 

“Are you alright?” he asked quietly. 

Annette nodded and looked at her hands which were stained red with blood. “It’s not mine,” she assured quietly. 

Felix’s hand rubbed a circle on her arm reassuringly, and Annette looked around the rest of the Council Chamber. The other members of the Council were standing, staring between Dimitri and Cornelia who was slumped, unmoving in her chair. Even Andre Gautier, who was being restrained by two Marines, was silent, staring at Cornelia’s unmoving form. 

“Is she dead?” Annette whispered to Felix. 

Felix let go of her arm and rounded the table, walking up to Cornelia. His hand was at his hip, over the weapon he had commandeered. He didn’t end up having to draw it because he pressed his fingers to the side of her neck, searching for a pulse, but pulled back a moment later, shaking his head. 

“She’s dead,” he announced to the room. Felix straightened and Annette wrung her hands in front of her body as he continued, “Does anyone else wish to declare loyalty to anybody other than His Highness?”

The Council Chamber was silent. Valen Galatea was the first to turn to Dimitri and bow respectfully. 

“Your Highness,” he said. “We welcome you back to Earth.” 

Dimitri still looked shaken and Annette felt horrible. She had no idea what his relationship was to Byleth or how he was feeling being back on Earth at all. Felix seemed to notice Dimitri’s fish-out-of-water expression and he cleared his throat, drawing attention back to himself. 

He waved to two of the Marines that had accompanied them. “Take Arnim’s body to medical to be autopsied. Send someone up for these other soldiers.” He looked at the UEN pilot. “Ashe, can you go back to Leonie and send a message to the Alliance? Update them on our progress here. The rest of you,” he said to the Council, “get out and get lost.”

Annette stepped closer to the roundtable, watching as Ashe and the others in the room disappeared, including two Marines carrying Cornelia’s body and the other soldiers that were escorting Admiral Irebrand and Andre Gautier to Holding, the same place that Annette had just broken Felix out of. 

Quickly, Annette realized she was left with Dimitri and Felix in the empty Council Chamber. She took a step towards the door, intending to give the two men their privacy, but Felix’s eyes flickered to her and she caught the barest hint of panic in his expression. He wanted her to stay. 

“Your Highness, why don’t you sit down?” Annette suggested.

Dimitri blinked as if the idea hadn’t occurred to him, but then he nodded. “Yes, that, seems reasonable.” He pulled out the chair at the head of the roundtable and sank down, staring at the holo on display: a wartime map of Mars’s AO. 

Annette walked over to Felix and slipped her hand into his. He ran his thumb over the back of her hand in silent thanks. “Are you alright?” she asked, echoing his earlier question. 

Felix sighed. “Fine, but we’re not done. Dimitri,” he said, addressing the prince, “what are we going to do now?”

Dimitri straightened. “We send a message to Mars calling for an immediate ceasefire and hope that they agree. We make peace with the Alliance and officially cede Ceres, Pallas, and Ganymede to them.”

Felix nodded. “Alright, but you know those motions will need to pass an emergency vote and, as it stands, you’re down three Council members. You cannot vote with four members.”

Dimitri looked at Felix. “It’s a bit unconventional, I suppose, but would you take your father’s place?”

Felix stiffened and Annette squeezed his hand, trying to be reassuring. It was certainly unusual for a Sergeant to be promoted to the Security Council, especially to fill a position normally held by an Admiral, but Annette knew that Dimitri needed Felix. He needed allies on the Council–allies that understood what had already taken place and what needed to happen in the future. 

“Dimitri,” Felix began and Dimitri held up a hand, cutting him off. 

“Please, Felix. Even if it’s just temporarily. I need six Council members to call for a vote.”

Felix’s jaw set. “I would make five. Do you have any more bright ideas on how to fill the sixth seat?”

Dimitri’s gaze slid to Annette and Annette felt her jaw drop. 

“No!” she said immediately. “I’m a nobody,” she explained. “I was Cornelia’s assistant, I don’t know anything about politics!”

Dimitri rubbed his chin, looking tired. “I disagree. I know what Cornelia was like to work with, so I imagine if you were her assistant then you know much more about the Council and how it operates than many of the other candidates that I could bring in. You are the daughter of a respected UEMC Master Sergeant and you have been on the right side of this conspiracy that has threatened Earth.”

“He’s right, Annette,” Felix agreed. “You might think that you’re not right for the job, but in fact, I happen to think you’re exactly the right person for the job.”

She looked between the prince and Felix. Felix was still holding her hand, but her palm was starting to feel sweaty. She wriggled it in his grip, but he didn’t drop her hand, his thumb tapping her knuckles gently. 

“If it makes you feel better,” Dimitri continued, “it likely won’t be a full position. Just until the war is over and more formal appointments can be made.”

Annette still felt hesitant, severely underqualified, and anxious, but Felix was holding onto her hand and Dimitri was looking at her like he believed in her. Annette knew that her father would have been proud of her for this moment, so she nodded. 

“Alright, I’ll do it.”

Dimitri smiled, but before he could say anything more to her, his comm chimed. He quickly answered it, opening the comm. Annette could see, even from across the roundtable, that his hand trembled as he read the message. 

“Well?” Felix demanded. “What’s going on?”

Dimitri placed the comm down and covered his mouth with one hand, looking incredibly stricken. “That was Mercedes. Byleth isn’t handling the surgery well. They’re running out of options.”

Annette’s stomach twisted. She pulled her hand out of Felix’s and linked it with her other hand behind her back to hide the redness that lingered on her palms. 

* * *

**DEIMOS RESEARCH STATION, DEIMOS**

“There’s nothing here,” Dorothea said, waving her flashlight over the last row of dead computer monitors. 

“Maybe the Earthens found something,” Ferdinand replied. Dorothea looked at him as he nudged aside a cage that was sitting on top of an empty table. 

His shoulders were slumped in a manner very unlike the Ferdinand she knew, so she lowered the beam of her flashlight and walked over to him. 

“Ferdie,” she said quietly. “Are you alright?”

He sighed. “We just betrayed our planet, Dorothea, and for what? A building full of dead computers?”

“We found that information about what Arundel was doing here. That’s important,” Dorothea argued.

Ferdinand ran a hand through his long red hair. “It wouldn’t be enough to get us back to Mars without getting arrested for treason, you know that. Plus, we put Bernadetta in danger by asking her to do the remote hack. Hubert could still be tapping her comm, and then we’d be in trouble.”

Dorothea grabbed his arm and stepped right in front of him, frowning. “Ferdinand, look at me.” He did. “Look at me and tell me that you regret what we did today.”

He hesitated, making eye contact with her in the dimly lit room. “I don’t regret it,” he admitted. “But, where do we go from here? We certainly can’t go back to Mars, and, not to insult your capabilities, but I’m pretty sure the Earthen Marine could take us both down without breaking a sweat.”

Dorothea laughed lightly. “Especially since we gave her armour back, huh?”

He turned his arm in her grip so that he was cupping her elbow. “Yes.”

“I think we’re going to be stuck with them for a while,” Dorothea pointed out. “There isn’t really a good way for us to part here, since we’re all still stuck in Mars’s AO in the middle of a war.”

“What about the Alliance?” Ferdinand said suddenly. 

Dorothea raised her eyebrows. “The colonists?”

“Caspar went to them, didn’t he?” His jaw set. “I’m sure we have information that they would be interested in trading for amnesty. Maybe we’ll even see Caspar again.”

Dorothea pondered his suggestion. “It’s an idea. That still doesn’t grant us a way out of Mars’s AO though, does it? We’re kind of stuck here until that happens.”

Ferdinand frowned. “I guess so. Do we know anyone that can give us transponder codes that aren’t our own since I’m sure Edelgard has noticed we’re missing by now?”

Ferdinand’s question was answered by the chiming of the temporary comm unit that he was carrying. Ferdinand furrowed his brow and pulled it out, swiping the screen to bring up the encrypted comm. 

“It’s from Bernie,” he said as it started playing. 

On the video display was not Bernadetta, however, but Linhardt. 

“ _Ferdinand, Dorothea, I hope this reaches you in time. Bernadetta told me this was the best and the only way. We recently received a transmission from Earth that states their intention to come to a ceasefire as Prince Dimitri has returned home and removed Cornelia Arnim from power on the Security Council,_ ” Linhardt explained. 

“In time?” Dorothea breathed, confused. 

“ _Edelgard does not intend to stand down_.” In the video, Linhardt frowned deeply. “ _She had me create a gravity sickness treatment for her, but it was untested and she has been acting more irritated and agitated since taking it. Bernadetta tells me that you are on Deimos with the Earthen Ambassador and Marine. You need to leave. When Edelgard refuses to surrender to Earth, they will be on their way to us and she has a plan to slow their progress._ ”

“No,” Ferdinand said, pressing a hand to his forehead. “She wouldn’t.”

“Oh god,” Dorothea murmured. Her grip on Ferdinand’s arm tightened. 

“ _She intends to destroy Deimos to create chaos in Mars’s AO. You must get off the moon and as far away from it as you can before it happens. I took the liberty of contacting Caspar and getting you transponder codes that match Alliance ships as well as rendez-vous coordinates where you can meet up with them. Bernadetta will ensure that they’re attached to this message._ ”

Linhardt turned his head, saying something away from the comm and Dorothea’s chest tightened. She looked up at Ferdinand. 

“Ferdie, what about them? Edie and Hubie will find out that they helped us.”

Ferdinand was watching the comm screen intently, but he looked upset. “There’s nothing we can do for them. They chose to help us and I suppose now we just hope that Bernadetta is good enough at covering their tracks that they can stay out of the spotlight.”

“ _Fly safe. And,_ ” Linhardt paused, “ _tell Caspar that I say hello_.”

“That sounds like a goodbye,” Ferdinand said gently.

Dorothea swallowed hard as the video comm died and text scrawled across the screen: the transponder and rendez-vous coding, as promised. “It might be,” she murmured. She took a deep breath. “Come on, we need to get the fuck out of here.”

She turned and dropped Ferdinand’s arm. Before she could step away from him, he tugged her back and she stumbled, practically falling into him. 

“Dorothea,” he said. “I am a man of too many words.”

The way that he was looking at her made her heart twist in her chest and she forcibly pulled herself away from him. 

“Don’t you dare say goodbye to me here, Ferdie. We’re not done yet.” His amber-orange eyes gleamed in the low light. “There will be time for that later,” she promised. 

He let go of her arm and she turned away, ignoring the way that her skin was buzzing under her armour. She jogged back down the hallway they had come through during their investigation, her boots snapping on metal floors. Ferdinand followed her and when they had nearly reached the main room, she called out. 

“Ingrid! Sylvain!” 

She wasn’t quite on a perfect first-name basis with the two Earthens, but she needed them to come now and not later. Fortunately, she seemed to have timed her shout perfectly as Sylvain and Ingrid reappeared back in the main chamber at the same time as she and Ferdinand did. 

Ingrid’s armour was clunky and heavy as she maneuvered towards them through the crowded lab space. “Did you find anything?”

Dorothea shook her head. “That’s not important. We need to get out of here right now.”

Sylvain’s eyes narrowed. “What?”

“They’re going to blow up Deimos to try to disturb Mars’s AO in preparation for Earth’s arrival,” Dorothea summarized quickly. “I’ll explain everything on our way out of here, but we need to go!”

Thankfully the urgency in her tone seemed to be enough to convince them, as Ingrid led the way out back to the shuttle they had arrived in. Sylvain, Dorothea, and Ferdinand all reattached their helmets to their vac shells and Ingrid refitted her armour’s helmet and they exited the airlock, hurrying back to their small craft. 

Ferdinand hardly paused to pressurize the cabin before he was inputting the codes that Bernadetta had sent up into their transponder system and setting a beacon on the rendez-vous point. Dorothea lingered at the back of the ship with the Earthens as it jolted into liftoff. She used the temporary strap-in measures by the door as they shot upwards into Deimos’s orbit. 

Once they were no longer accelerating at max speed, Ingrid deactivated her power armour and stepped out of it and Dorothea noticed idly how Sylvain’s eyes caught on his companion as she stepped around Dorothea towards the front of the ship, frowning. 

“This is a short-range shuttle with Martian codes, how are we supposed to get out of here?” Ingrid asked. 

“We have neutral codes from our friend down on Mars as well as directions to rendez-vous with the Alliance,” Dorothea answered simply. 

Sylvain tore his gaze off of Ingrid and looked at her. “The Alliance? Why the Alliance?”

“Because, as of our last update, the Alliance has allied with your prince. Prince Dimitri returned to Earth today and he has extended a ceasefire proposal to Edelgard.”

Ingrid pursed her lips. “She obviously doesn’t intend to accept it, does she?”

“No,” Ferdinand agreed, hardly taking his eyes off the controls as he piloted the shuttle. “Blowing up Deimos is to slow Earth down when they inevitably come after Mars.”

Dorothea sighed heavily. “Look, we’re going to the Alliance because we have nowhere else to go now, but I’m hoping that when we get there, maybe you’ll be able to reunite with your friends or even find transport back down to Earth. It will take us a few days to get to the rendez-vous in a ship like this.”

Ingrid nodded. “Thank you. You have risked a lot to help us.”

Dorothea dipped her head in return. “You’ve done a lot for us as well.”

The comment seemed to puzzle the Marine, but Ingrid just shook it off, moving further towards Ferdinand to study their proposed flight plan. Dorothea turned back to Sylvain who had gone back to watching Ingrid, looking troubled. She put a hand on her hip and raised an eyebrow. 

“Afraid she’ll just ditch you to return to service?” she asked quietly. 

Sylvain’s eyes darted to her and his brow furrowed. “What?”

“You look at her like she could step on your heart and you’d apologize for her trouble,” Dorothea said plainly. “It’s kind of a different impression from the act you put on for the cameras in Thebe.”

Sylvain sighed. “Do you not have anything better to do than pry?”

She laughed lightly. “You’re no fun."

“I could poke your navy captain there in return, but I’m choosing not to aggravate the situation,” Sylvain rebuked immediately. 

Dorothea pressed her lips together, mildly impressed. “Not bad,” she conceded. 

He nodded to her and walked towards Ingrid and Ferdinand who were staring at the rendez-vous point with expressions that held a varied level of disbelief. Dorothea frowned and enlarged the communication, noting the name of the ship they were set to rendez-vous with just outside of Mars’s AO. 

“I suppose hailing the Alliance flagship is one way to tell them we’re on their side,” she murmured, studying the specs for the minted AN Derdriu that were blinking at them. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is for the Sylvgrids and uh....sorry Dimileths...
> 
> Come yell at me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/nicolewrites37)!


	23. Twenty-Three - Dust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Plans are made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me? updating on a sunday when I'm supposed to? yeah, for once haha. 
> 
> next sunday is a bit iffy on whether or not I'll be able to update (school keeps me a very busy blob) but I welcome you to follow me [Twitter](https://twitter.com/nicolewrites37) for updates!
> 
> the last two chapters were pretty long, but this one is back to a more usual length~

Twenty-Three - Dust

* * *

**SPACESHIP DERDRIU, OUTER COLONIES**

Byleth came to slowly and felt like someone had left her in an airlock with the pressure on too high. Her chest was aching and everything felt infuriatingly fuzzy. She let out a low groan, and then something squeezed her hand and she wiggled her fingers as best she could, letting her eyes slip open. 

The bright lights and faint beeping noises told her that she was in a med bay of sorts and the pressure on her left arm told her that she was hooked up to a med dock. Byleth blinked against the brightness of the lights and her vision slowly cleared. She followed the line of her arm out to the hand holding hers and the rest of the person attached to the hand. 

Dimitri looked absolutely exhausted, but he was dressed in Earthen fineries and someone had trimmed his hair and he was staring at her as if nothing else mattered.

“Hi,” she said quietly. Her voice scraped in her throat and burned mildly. She winced at the feeling and shifted in the chair of the med dock, searching for a more comfortable position. 

Dimitri’s blue eyes widened as he stared at her and his mouth opened, but he seemed unable to find words. Byleth frowned. 

“What is it?”

“Your eyes,” he choked out finally. “I was already getting used to the hair, but that’s not what I had expected.”

Byleth blinked, confused. “What’s wrong with my eyes?”

Dimitri dropped her hand and fumbled to his pocket for his comm. He tapped something and pulled up a front-facing camera before he passed it to her. Byleth took it with her right hand and then immediately dropped it to her lap once she noticed what Dimitri had been staring at. 

“What happened?” she demanded. “Why are they _green_?”

Dimitri shook his head. “I’m not exactly sure what happened, but Lysithea was the one who assured us that it was probably normal.”

Byleth frowned. “Lysithea?” She shifted in the seat again and her stomach pulsed. All of a sudden, her memories of the Earthen incident came rushing back to her. “I got shot,” she muttered. 

Dimitri winced. “You did and Mercedes tried to treat you on Earth, but apparently they were going to lose you in surgery. Mercedes and Lysithea made a gamble and apparently it paid off.”

“What gamble?” she pressed. 

“On Earth, Mercedes gave you a very high dose of gravity sickness meds at Lysithea’s suggestion. Then, we returned you to the Derdriu and finished the operation here with Marianne’s help,” Dimitri explained. 

Byleth looked around the room, recognizing it as the med bay on the AN Derdriu. “If we’re back on the Derdriu, why are you here?” she asked. “Don’t you have a planet to be running?”

Dimitri shook his head. “I have left the Security Council in the hands of long time advisors that I trust and the young woman we met back on Earth, Annette. I am here to deal with Edelgard myself.”

Byleth jolted, jerking against the restraint fastened to her arm. “Don’t you remember the last time that you tried to communicate politely with the Martian Emperor? You got blasted out of the sky by stealth tech.”

Dimitri laughed, giving her a rueful smile. “The difference is, this time there will be no peaceful negotiation.”

Byleth felt her eyes widen as his words set in. “You mean to siege Mars by force.” She looked at the Alliance branding in the med bay. “The Alliance is going to help you siege Mars and end the war this way.”

Dimitri nodded. “I sent word to Edelgard calling for a ceasefire, but, to my dismay, she declined my offer. We have no choice left but to take this fight to Mars ourselves.” He looked away for a moment, pain flickering across his expression. 

Byleth twisted, taking his hand again. “What’s wrong? Had you really expected her to listen to your request? It does not seem like her style, I will admit.”

Dimitri shook his head. “I will tell you this, Byleth, because I have put you through enough to go on without knowing the truth any longer. I was once friends with Edelgard.”

Byleth’s grip on his hand loosened instinctively and her lips parted. “What?”

“We were children,” Dimitri continued. “She was brought to Earth by her Uncle for a short period of time when we were young. She stayed in the Royal Quarters in New York and we were friends. We were the only two children around so it was natural that we formed a connection. Only, years later, once she had returned to prominence on Mars, she no longer seemed to remember me at all.” He closed his eyes, looking sad. “I had hoped that an olive branch extended in troubled times might make her reconsider, but it has clearly not. She destroyed her own moon to muddy our path to Mars’s surface.”

Byleth stared. “What?”

“Deimos is gone. Its debris still orbits Mars and will make it much more difficult for our pilots to maneuver down to the surface to make clean landings.”

Byleth felt like her head was spinning. “Deimos? She destroyed her entire moon just to keep the war going.” Byleth thought she might be ill. 

Before either she or Dimitri could say another word, the doors to the med bay slid open with a hiss and Dimitri abruptly dropped Byleth’s hand as Claude stepped into the med bay, followed by the young Alliance medic, Marianne. 

“You’re awake!” Claude said, looking surprised. 

He took in her green hair and eyes with a curious look and Byleth knew that he was thinking the same thing as she had been: that she now bore an uncanny similarity to the people in the files that had been buried in the Seiros’s life support. 

Marianne stepped around the med dock to the attached monitor and began running some scans. Partway through she stopped and frowned, looking at Byleth. She stepped closer, holding out a hand and carefully pausing. 

“May I?” she asked quietly, reaching for the hem of Byleth’s shirt. 

Byleth waved her on, assuming that she knew what she was doing due to her medical training. Marianne smiled tightly and slowly rolled up the hem of Byleth’s top, exposing her stomach to the room. Byleth was prepared to see a nasty wound that was just in the beginning stages of healing, but instead, the skin around the injury was a dark pink and only slightly swollen around the stitches. 

“What the fuck?” Byleth said. She looked at Dimitri. “How many days has it been?”

Dimitri blinked at her injury. “Three,” he murmured. “That does not seem possible.”

Marianne looked just as startled. “Your vitals are fine and your body doesn’t seem to be suffering from anything. It appears as though the med dock has just accelerated your healing process to an intense rate. You will probably be completely fine by tomorrow and you could honestly walk around today.” She shook her head. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Byleth clenched her calves, stretching stiff muscles. “Can I walk around?”

Claude suddenly pulled out his comm and read a message off of it, raising an eyebrow. “Who is up for a walk to docking? Apparently, there are some people there that you might be interested in meeting with, Your Highness.”

Dimitri frowned. “What?”

“That signal we received a few days ago was a comm from a Martian craft declaring that they had defectors on board with important information regarding Deimos and Mars’s military. They were the reason that we knew Deimos was going to be destroyed,” Claude explained. “They finally reached us today and they’ve just landed in the docking bay.”

Byleth pushed the release button on the band of her med dock and withdrew her arm without waiting for permission. She carefully resituated her shirt and slid her legs around the side of the med dock, pushing herself to her feet. Her stomach ached faintly, but not nearly as bad as it should have, given the circumstances. She didn’t even stumble as she stood, putting a hand on her hip and looking between the leaders of Earth and the Alliance. 

“Let’s go then.”

Dimitri frowned, but he didn’t say anything to her, rising out of his own seat. Together, they followed Claude to a lift that led them to the docking bay level. The airlock was open, meaning that the bay was already pressurized. Claude led the way out and Byleth scanned the bay as they strode inside, looking for anything out of place. 

It was hard to miss the beat-up Martian shuttle that had landed nearby and the cluster of people outside of it. The group of people comprised of Alliance soldiers Hilda, Caspar, and Leonie as well as Dedue, Felix, and Ashe and then four figures that Byleth didn’t recognize. 

Dimitri froze, staring at the people in shock. “Sylvain? Ingrid?” he called, an edge of desperation in his voice. 

The blonde woman that Byleth didn’t recognize turned towards them at the sound of Dimitri’s voice. Her face lit up and she ducked away from Felix, sprinting across the hangar to Dimitri. Dimitri pulled her into a hug immediately, laughing wildly. The man next to Dedue noticed that his companion had run off and he jogged after her, waving at Dimitri. 

“Dimitri! Last we heard, you were sort of dead!” the man said brightly, grinning. 

Dimitri released the blonde woman and pulled his other friend into a hug. Byleth had recognized the names as the childhood friends of Dimitri’s who had been imprisoned on Mars at the start of the war. Dimitri released Sylvain from the hug and shook his head, staring between the two of them in awe. 

“How did you two survive Victoria?”

Ingrid glanced back at the others gathered outside the Martian Shuttle. “It’s a long story.”

Dimitri shook his head. “I’m being rude. Byleth, Claude, this is Ambassador Sylvain Gautier and Gunnery Sergeant Ingrid Galatea. Sylvain, Ingrid, this is Claude von Riegan, leader of the Alliance, and Byleth Eisner, the one who saved me after the Fhirdiad exploded.”

* * *

**SPACESHIP DERDRIU, OUTER COLONIES**

“Hey, Caspar!” Ashe called, waving to the Martian. He jogged over, looking between Caspar and the brunette woman he was talking to. He thought belatedly that she was one of the Martians that arrived with Sylvain Gautier and Ingrid Galatea. Ashe hesitated. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”

“Nope!” Caspar replied cheerfully. “This is Dorothea, another Martian defector. She used to work in Intelligence,” he introduced. “Dorothea, this is Ashe. He’s from Earth.”

The woman smiled at him in a way that was very pretty, but Ashe could see the years of experience in manipulation thinly veiled behind it from his own exposures to Earthen Intelligence agents. She was obviously far more intelligent than her pretty smile indicated. He nodded to her in reply.

“Nice to meet you,” she said. She looked him up and down. “How does a UEN pilot end up with the Alliance, if I may ask?”

Ashe shrugged. “I was on the Fhirdiad.” She looked a bit taken aback at that information, but Ashe wasn’t surprised. Just because it was now common knowledge that Dimitri had survived the explosion, it didn’t mean that people knew some of the others from the crew had lived too. 

“I hope there are no hard feelings about that, since, you know, Mars didn’t actually blow up the Fhirdiad,” Dorothea offered. 

Ashe smiled faintly. She was right and the information that she and the others had brought from Deimos had confirmed that. “Yeah, I know,” he said. “Caspar, I wanted to ask, have you seen Petra?”

Caspar tapped his chin, considering. “I think I last saw her talking with Claude on the bridge? She might have gone to one of the upper decks though. That is where she spends more of her time. Maybe she went to call her gramps again.”

Ashe nodded. That had been his guess, but he had run into Caspar before he had gotten the chance to check the upper decks. He stepped away from Caspar, preparing to leave when the Martian held out a hand. 

“Hey, Ashe, wait,” Caspar said. “Did you get an assignment for what’s coming up?”

Ashe thought about the comm sitting unread and unanswered in his pocket and he smiled weakly. “Yeah, this is kind of about that.”

Caspar frowned, but the Martian woman’s smile flickered into a knowing expression and she waved him off. “Tell Petra we say hello when you find her,” she requested. 

Ashe turned away and hurried off towards the nearest lift before Caspar could drag him into a longer conversation as he tended to do. He entered the lift and stared at the button array, hesitating on which floor to push. He almost scanned the port for the bridge, but at the last second, he changed his mind and went with the highest observation deck on the ship.

The lift rose silently and then opened up to the u-shaped deck that curled around with large monitor-covered walls showing thousands of stars. He followed the glowing strip lights on the floor as he walked to the left side of the u-shape and was glad to see that his hunch was correct. 

Petra was sitting on the floor of the Derdriu, leaning back on her hands, staring out at the stars. Ashe approached her quietly but Petra seemed to notice him anyway as she slid a few inches to the right and looked over her shoulder as he moved to sit next to her. 

“Hello Ashe,” she greeted softly. 

“Hey, I was looking for you,” he replied. 

She smiled. “You have found me, yes?”

He laughed faintly. “I guess I have.”

Petra looks back at the monitors, admiring the stars. “It is strange to be up here. I know I had been saying I have never been living on a ship, but even after this amount of time, I am still in amazement at everything you can see.” She pointed at the faint blue blob on a monitor. “That is Earth, yes? That is your home.”

Ashe nodded. “Yeah, that’s Earth.”

Petra looked thoughtful for a moment. “I’m glad we have fought for your home as well as mine now. I just wish I could have been more useful in taking it back.”

Ashe rested his hand on the floor over hers tentatively, but Petra didn’t move her hand so he took it as a sign that it was okay. “That’s not your fault. It’s kind of a difficult situation with gravity sickness and all. Besides, Claude said you were helpful on the Sauin while we were down on the surface.”

Petra laughed. “I guess, but I am not a pilot.” She looked at him and Ashe’s breath caught at the reflection of the stars in her eyes. “You are being the pilot of the two of us, remember?”

Ashe nodded. “Right, but a pilot is only as good as the force he’s fighting for.”

Petra’s head tilted as she considered his words. She turned her hand over and slid her fingers between his. Her hand was warm. “You are fighting for good people, I think. Claude, definitely, is a good man, and I am liking your UEK Prince too.”

Ashe smiled. “His Highness is nice. I was kind of surprised when I met him originally, but you know, I think that was just the European bias against him.”

“This is because you are having come from Ireland, yes? And you have said that your Europeans historically didn’t much like your Americans.”

Ashe’s smile widened. “Yeah, not much, but that’s not important. What matters is that I believe in the people I’m fighting for, and that’s good enough for me.”

“And your family?” Petra asked. “Are they being okay with you fighting instead of coming home?”

Ashe felt a bit cold for a minute and Petra turned towards him, noticing the wilt in his shoulders. She slid closer to him, curling her hand around his tighter and Ashe looked out at the stars. 

“I never even told them I was back on Earth,” he admits. “I guess I just thought it might be easier to have that conversation later.”

Petra pulled on his hand hard and Ashe was caught off guard, almost falling into her. She hugged him with the arm not holding his hand and he blinked, feeling a little awkward. After she didn’t let go immediately, he adjusted his grip and hugged her back. 

“You are not being a bad brother, if that is what you are thinking,” Petra said. “I think I am doing something similar. My people are probably needing me on Hygiea and yet I am wanting to be here. Maybe that is selfish of me too.”

“I don’t think it’s selfish,” Ashe replied immediately as he leaned back out of the hug. 

Petra dropped his hand and touched his face gently. “Then you and I are the same, yes? We are here to fight for our families and we will go home when it is over.”

Ashe felt a pit sink in his stomach. It was something he had been dreading bringing up with her: the fact that she could never come to Earth with him and that his responsibilities might take him back to Earth when the war was over. 

“Although,” Petra continued, “maybe, since you are having your own ship, you can be visiting me on Hygiea lots.” Her smile turned a little shy and her hand slid off of his face. “I am hoping that you will be wanting to visit me.”

“Petra,” Ashe said, “if you would have me, I would love nothing more. I can even bring my siblings to meet you. I know that Jude would love you and I think Finley would too.”

Her smile bloomed. “I would be liking that a lot, Ashe.” 

Feeling bold, he leaned towards her a bit and was pleasantly surprised when she met him halfway, meeting in a soft kiss. Her hand came back up his face as she held him close for a moment before she pulled back. Her thumb stroked over his cheekbone as she smiled at him when the kiss broke. 

“I am liking these people we are fighting for,” Petra said quietly. “I am fighting in this for you too, Ashe, not just for my people.”

He rested his forehead against hers and the comm in his pocket feels heavy. “I got invited to go to the surface when we land on Mars,” he blurted, finally unable to withhold the information from her.

Her eyes turned curious. “Will you be going to fight?”

He felt torn. “I know that I should probably feel grateful that I can since Mars’s gravity won’t harm me, but I can’t help but feel that I shouldn’t.”

Petra’s fingers drummed over his cheek, the touch light and comforting. “Well, I will be on a ship up here, if you are wanting to be doing your pilot thing instead,” she offered. 

Ashe laughed. “You know, I think I would like that.”

She smiled again and kissed him softly again. “I would be liking that too,” she murmured against his lips.

* * *

**THEBE, MARS**

“Your Majesty, what are you doing here?” Hubert asked, rising to his feet suddenly. He dismissed the dockets on the holo in front of him as she approached and Edelgard sighed. 

“Hubert, I’m not dead yet. I can’t afford to die yet, remember?” she pointed out dryly. 

She waved a hand over the holo, recalling the displays Hubert was looking at. The larger of the three displays was playing the muted transmission that they had received from the UEK Security Council and Prince Dimitri who had, apparently, made his glorious comeback on Earth. 

Edelgard frowned reflexively. “I am still surprised that they took back Earth as easily as they did. I thought Arundel’s claws were sunk in deeper there.”

Hubert dismissed the comm. “Lady Edelgard, I think we both know that Arundel has given up on Earth. He gave up on Deimos and you removed him from Mars, so I believe he decided to cut his losses and focus on Selene at their stronghold.”

Edelgard pressed her lips together and didn’t reply. It was true as she had never been particularly impressed with the strength of character on the Earthen Security Council. In particular, she had held a distaste for Cornelia Arnim, the former Secretary-General due to her own personal experiences on the planet, though she didn’t want to dredge up those memories. 

“What’s the status of Deimos?” she asked, redirecting her attention to the second of the three projections. 

“The moon has been destroyed,” Hubert replied bluntly. 

Edelgard sighed. “Elaborate, please. I was the one who gave that order.”

“And you knew the risks you were taking when you gave the order,” Hubert countered and then immediately flinched, looking down. 

Edelgard folded her arms. “Hubert,” she began.

“That was out of line,” he corrected himself quickly. “I’m terribly sorry, Lady Edelgard.”

Edelgard fidgeted with the hem of her shirt for a moment, feeling guilty. “I do feel bad,” she admitted quietly. “Ferdinand and Dorothea were my friends too.”

Hubert ran a hand through his hair and Edelgard studied him. He looked gaunt and thinner than usual and worry spiked in Edelgard. She wondered if he had actually gotten any sleep since Ferdinand and Dorothea had defected and she had taken the injection from Linhardt. Edelgard felt like all she had done was sleep. 

The injection, whatever concoction Linhardt had made, wasn’t like any other treatment Edelgard had ever had. It was different from the usual gravity sickness meds that were normally manufactured, but it didn’t give her the same feeling that the injection usually did. She was getting frequent dizzy spells, but she was also getting small memory lapses. 

The memory problems were the newest and most confusing symptom. The first time, she had found herself wandering a courtyard with no recollection of how she had gotten there. The second time, she had ended up alone in her office with tipped-over furniture and Hubert had burst in on her, saying she had been screaming. 

There was a constant simmering pain in her veins too, but that was closer to a normal sensation with her special brand of gravity sickness. The nausea didn’t leave either, but it came in shorter bursts that were surprisingly less violent than they had been when she had taken Arundel’s medication. 

“Deimos station has been completely lost. We lost connection to it before the initial explosion, probably due to on-site power failure initiated by Arundel. If we were right in predicting that Ferdinand and Dorothea were trying to access information on the moon, it is likely that Arundel shut everything down remotely in response to their probing,” Hubert explained after a minute.

Edelgard nodded. “That makes sense. It’s on-brand for him.”

“Then, we used three of the stealth missiles provided by Arundel to physically detonate the station. The moon was also destroyed and its debris took out two Earthen satellites and four of our own.”

“Four?” she questioned.

“Two were in direct orbit of the moon, the other two were collateral that unfortunately could not be avoided. The debris field has certainly cluttered our AO in that area. It will be much harder to maneuver large ships through. We’ll be able to catch more on scanners, even if they use transmission lines with the anti-tracking mechanisms that Caspar stole,” Hubert explained. 

Edelgard’s vision fuzzed at the edges momentarily and she gripped the holo console to steady herself as she nodded. “Good. I want it to be as hard as possible to get to the surface. Have you put out the recall order for ships to return to defend us?”

Hubert’s expression tightened. “I have,” he said, but she could sense the hesitance in his voice. 

“What does that mean?” she demanded. 

“It means that nine ships have defected,” Hubert replied bluntly. “They heard of our engagement with the UEK Prince and how we declined his ceasefire offer. There are a good few Martian captains and civilians who were not happy about your decision.”

Edelgard let out a slow breath. “I didn’t have a choice,” she said firmly. “I’m done living under Earth’s thumb. Even if we could prove to Earth that Arundel and his people started this war, they’ll never let us stand on our own again. We would always be watched and controlled and puppeted.” She clenched her fists. “I’m done being a puppet.”

Hubert didn’t look at her, staring at the last of the dockets. “Are you quite sure? I don’t think that Prince Dimitri is the same man as his father was,” he said quietly. “You saw the message he sent himself. He was calling for an end to pointless bloodshed. You saw that Earth is ceding its colonies to the Alliance. I don’t think Dimitri has any interest in ruling Mars any more than he does over the colonies.”

Edelgard turned away, feeling something dark and nasty curdling in her stomach. Hubert had been by her side since she was very, very small and she had always trusted his opinion. But now, when she needed him more than ever to defend her, he was standing against her. 

“We have lost so much in this fight. We have lost our colonies, our ships, our people, our capital, and our moon. What has Earth lost? A handful of colonies that they never really controlled? A prince who rose from the dead to reclaim his home in a fit glory?” She shook her head. “I will not back down from this war, Hubert.”

“I understand,” he said. “And I will stand with you, Your Majesty.”

“Good.”

She took a deep breath and fought off a headache that was trying to grip her skull. Her tongue suddenly felt mildly itchy and her eyes stung with tears that she didn’t have a reason for crying. Hurriedly, she wiped her eyes and bit her tongue hard and the itchy feeling faded. A crawling sensation crept over her skin and she pinched the inside of her wrist. It lessened but didn’t fade. 

“Lady Edelgard?” Hubert questioned, noticing her movements. 

Edelgard stared at her hand. Where she had rubbed her eyes, her fingers had come away red and she felt her throat tighten. She touched her cheek again and felt the stickiness of blood continuing to pool at the edges of her vision. 

“Hubert,” she said, her voice small, “may I borrow your handkerchief?”

He didn’t hesitate when she asked, handing over the grey cloth square. Edelgard took it with a shaking hand and wiped her hands before dabbing it at her eyes. The square quickly dampened, but thankfully her eyes didn’t continue to bleed too much. She lowered the cloth down and she heard Hubert let out a tense breath behind her. 

Edelgard didn’t turn to face him, but she lifted her chin and squared her shoulders. Her skin still felt like it was crawling. “I will not stand down,” she reaffirmed. 

“Lady Edelgard,” he began, but she cut him off. 

“Hubert, the Alliance and Earth are coming. I will stand against them. I will not ask my people to.” She turned to him. “Issue a civilian evacuation of all domes. Get as many people as far away from Mars as we can. Get them to safety and make sure that they are unharmed.”

“Your Majesty,” he tried again, but she stared him down, keeping her glare cool and unwavering. 

“I will die before I see my planet fall but I’m afraid I’ll die before much else happens at this point.”


	24. Twenty-Four - The Red Plan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Friends reconnect and planning continues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am early once again, but I'm busy as all heck right now and today is about the only chance this weekend I'll get to update. I'm probably not going to update next weekend based on how much work I have to do for school, but there is the slightest of slight chances that something might happen if I manage to get my academic life together. Probably not though. Little bit longer one today, but I'm in a celebratory mood. 
> 
> I'm on [Twitter!](https://twitter.com/nicolewrites37)

Twenty-Four - The Red Plan

* * *

**SPACESHIP DERDRIU, OUTER COLONIES**

Lysithea was alone in the communications room again. She stared at the blank, beeping comms line and bit her lip. Since the short, abrupt comm they had received in response to Prince Dimitri’s request for a ceasefire, they had heard nothing from Mars. Lysithea had hoped that perhaps after some consideration, there might have been a change of heart in the Martian leadership, but all she had seen was the same Martian attitude that had reflected in their treatment of the colonies. 

Mars had always been detached when dealing with their colonies, making governors jump through several hoops to even find the right person to report to and never letting them communicate directly to the supervisors and people in power on Mars. Lysithea wasn’t sure exactly how this might have differed under Edelgard’s direct rule, but that didn’t really matter now. 

She looked down at the desk in front of the comm’s console and slowly spun her comm in a circle. She had a message recorded on there that she wanted to send, but she had no idea if it would be received, much less even listened to. It was a nerve-wracking thought to consider sending the message, but she had to hope that maybe something a little more personal could get through to the Martian emperor. 

Claude and Dimitri were already planning and structuring the upcoming attack on Mars which would be happening shortly, but Lysithea was still holding onto a shred of hope that the whole thing could be called off. 

She tapped her comm against the reader and pulled up her own video, letting it play as she mouthed along to the recorded transmission. 

“ _Emperor Edelgard, I hope this comm reaches you before we do. My name is Lysithea von Ordelia and I am the daughter of Evangeline Ordelia. I’m sure you can see by the video feed attached here that we have something in common. I suffered at the hands of those scientists as a child. I lost all of my siblings to them. I had hoped that perhaps you might be more willing to listen to someone who understands more of what you’ve been through._

“ _Please, Your Majesty, call a ceasefire. We have the documentation that shows you received stealth tech in transactions completed between you and this organization. There is no need for the violence to spread further if you’ve cut your threads to them._ ”

Lysithea dismissed the transmission video halfway through and deleted it. She was being foolish and idealistic to even imagine that Edelgard would consider her video for the slightest second. Lysithea discarded the comm entirely and was about to run a testing scan of the comms systems that she had built for the Mars mission when the door to the comms room beeped and opened. 

She turned and watched as a man stepped into the room, his hands tucked into his pockets. He was wearing a UEN uniform, but with a certain degree of casualness that was absent in most typical Earthen sailors. Lysithea recognized him. His name was Sylvain Gautier and he was the Ambassador to Mars that had been imprisoned there and one of the four people who had arrived on the Derdriu after investigating Deimos. 

He gave her a faint smile and nodded to her. “You’re Lysithea, right?”

She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. “Yes. What do you want?”

He rubbed the back of his head. “This is probably going to sound very strange, but I recognize you. I’ve seen your picture once before.”

She frowned. “I’m the daughter of a governor. That’s probably where you’ve seen me.”

He shook his head and dropped his arm back to his side. “No, it was in a medical file on Deimos. A record from years ago recorded back on Io.”

Lysithea shot to her feet and stared at him. “What?” she demanded. 

“You were experimented on,” he continued quietly. “You were the only one of your siblings to survive whatever they did to you and it,” he paused, taking in her shock of white hair, “it has obviously left some lasting impressions on you. Like artificially induced gravity sickness.”

Lysithea’s head spun. “You found my medical file on Deimos? Why would it have been on Deimos?”

“Because we think that the organization that did whatever they did to you also did something to Emperor Edelgard. She had a file too, but her injection was different. It was more rapid and more mutated. The normal gravity sickness meds didn’t work for her like they do for you.”

Lysithea’s lips parted as she put things together in her mind. “She would have needed specially engineered treatment then, probably only able to be created by the people who made the serum in the first place.” She pointed at Sylvain as her brain tried to piece together the puzzle. “If she cut her ties with whoever did that to her in order to take control of her planet, she has nothing left to lose.”

Sylvain raised an eyebrow. “Nothing left to lose? Like no reason to call a ceasefire in a war that she started without a hope of winning and a reason to destroy the moon of her planet?”

Lysithea swallowed. “Yes. That’s exactly the kind of nothing that she has to lose.” She looked back at her comms board. “We never stood a real chance of getting her to back down.” Her lips pulled down into a scowl. “I guess that means we don’t really have a choice with the next step then.”

Sylvain opened his mouth to say something, but then a comm blinked on Lysithea’s transmission board. His brows knit. “What does that mean?”

She stared at the blinking orange dot. “This is a live message request, an open channel. It’ll be delayed by a few minutes, but–” She cut herself off, hurriedly answering the comm. 

The display blinked on with the video transmission to a video of a young man with long green hair and blue eyes. He looked seriously into the camera and stole a glance over his shoulder as if making sure that he was alone. Based on the transmission, it was hard to see what kind of room he was in, but it looked like some kind of laboratory. 

“ _Bernadetta tells me this will get to the Derdriu_ ,” the man says. “ _I guess I’ll just have to hope that I’m right in my prediction that Miss Ordelia will be the one to see the transmission_.”

Lysithea frowned. She had no idea how he knew that she would be the one monitoring the comms and that made her uneasy. 

“ _My name is Linhardt. I am a biologist working in the direct employ of Her Majesty, Emperor Edelgard. I created a serum to help her with her artificially induced gravity sickness, but it was untested and I fear it will hold grievous side effects and could possibly destroy her mental capacity entirely_ .” The man sighed and Lysithea noted that he looked exhausted. “ _I have been made aware, Miss Ordelia, that you suffer from a similar condition to Her Majesty. I have further prototypes of the treatment created and I think that with a bit more time I could create a functional treatment for you that could cure you of your condition entirely._ ”

Lysithea’s breath caught. When Caspar had first mentioned that his friend Linhardt was looking into a cure, she had thought it would be an incredible long shot, but that didn’t appear to be the case anymore since it looked like it might be a possibility. 

She hit the record button, capturing her own video to send back. “Linhardt von Hevring, why are you telling me any of this? We’re on opposite sides of a conflict that is about to come to the surface of your planet.”

She sent her comm and frowned at the screen as it beamed out. There would be approximately a seven-minute delay on either side of the transmission and she worried her lip between her teeth as she waited. 

“I met him,” Sylvain said and Lysithea startled. She had almost forgotten he was there.

“What?”

“He helped us on Mars,” Sylvain explained. “Brought the antidote to Cortezine poisoning.” 

Lysithea stared at him. “Cortezine?”

Sylvain chuckled darkly. “The Emperor’s trusted retainer didn’t seem to think we were of any use to them.” 

Lysithea shook her head, shivering at the implication. “I’m sorry.”

Sylvain shrugged. “You seem to know more than enough about impending doom.”

Lysithea touched her hair. “Something like that,” she agreed. 

He nodded to the console. “How long until you get a reply?”

“Fifteen minutes give or take,” she explained. “Seven-minute delay on either end, so that would put us at about fifteen minutes.”

“Right,” Sylvain said. “You know, those people that hurt you, if they were on Mars and on Deimos, I think we have an idea of where they went next.”

“You do?”

“Selene,” Sylvain answered. “We hadn’t quite put all of that together on Deimos, but there were records from Selene and then Dimitri mentioned something about some funny stuff going on on Selene anyway, so it would make sense, wouldn’t it?”

Lysithea recalled the conversation she had had with Claude and Byleth. It made sense. It made more than a little sense. “I’ll do what digging I can, but shouldn’t you be getting ready for the mission? We’ll be heading towards Mars shortly.”

Sylvain stepped back, heading out of the room, but he paused. “You can handle this?”

She put a hand on her hip and scowled. “Excuse you, but I’m more than capable. I’m the reason we can do almost anything in the Alliance.”

He chuckled, holding his hands up. “Alright, alright, point taken.”

Sylvain slipped out of the room and Lysithea was left alone with the beeping comms board as she waited for the response from Linhardt von Hevring on Mars. Almost exactly fifteen minutes after she had sent her comm, there was a beep as she received a text comm in response. She opened it, sending it to the holo screen as she read it over. 

[ _Because I’m hoping that this goes as painlessly as possible. Check the attachment. - LH_ ]

Lysithea frowned and pulled up the attached message. It was a series of codes that looked vaguely familiar. She fed them through her scanner and stared in surprise as she realized exactly what they were. They were Martian ship codes that would get them to the surface of Mars easily with almost no detection. 

They had been planning on trying to spoof the codes like they had done around Hygeia, but it would take a lot of work. This would save them probably more than a day of preparation. Lysithea recalled the attachment to her handheld comm and buzzed Claude. She crossed her arms and took a last look at the blinking comm on the holo display. 

“Painlessly, huh?” 

* * *

**SPACESHIP DERDRIU, OUTER COLONIES**

“ _I still can’t believe you talked me into staying here,_ ” Annette complained over the transmission. Felix smiled faintly. “ _Everything with the Security Council is fine. Valen Galatea and Marcus Charon are taking the reins and it’s going smoothly. We’ve diverted all the ships in the Belt to the Derdriu’s location and they should be joining you shortly._ ” 

Felix watched the Annette on his screen fidget like she was uncertain about something before she continued. “ _Felix, I know that maybe you don’t care about your own life, but I hope you take it easy. For my sake? Because,_ ” she paused, looking nervous. “ _I care about you and I want you to be safe.”_

Felix felt his lips twitch when Annette mentioned that she cared about him. It wasn’t a common phrase that he heard. He knew his friends cared and his father had cared, but beyond that, he had never really attempted to branch out and make friends, despite Ingrid or Sylvain’s urgings. He was satisfied with his job and the people that surrounded him. 

Annette was different. She had come into his life when he had been at an all-time low: he had thought Dimitri dead and Ingrid and Sylvain had been taken captive on Mars as the catalyzing event for a war. Plus, it didn’t begin to cover the physical and mental difficulty he had undergone with his spinal injury following the destruction of the UEN Fhirdiad. 

She had been patient with him, despite his short temper, and she had trusted him with her suspicions about Cornelia and had, in return, been a sounding board for his own suspicions. She had supported him when his father had been assassinated. She had trusted him with the truth of why she had come to New York even if it put her in more danger to be around him. 

Plus, she had kissed him. Felix had only kissed four people in his whole life. Ingrid had been his first when he was six and she had kissed him out of spite. The second had been a girl in his school days who he had held hands with on the playground for a total of ten minutes before she had abandoned him in favour of Sylvain and his older brother. 

Sylvain was, ironically, the third person that Felix had kissed, when he was seventeen and Sylvain nineteen and they were drunk out of their minds in Sylvain’s father’s penthouse before Sylvain and Glenn enlisted. Neither Sylvain nor Felix ever talked about that. As far as Felix was concerned, Sylvain would never mention it again or he would rip the man’s tongue out himself, no matter what Ingrid said to try and play peacekeeper. 

And then there was Annette. Annette with her silly, made-up songs, and sunshine smile. It was silly of him, but he cared for her. He felt like he couldn’t stop seeing her when she wasn’t around and he couldn’t stop staring at her when she was. Felix hated the feeling, but he didn’t want it to stop. 

“Annette,” he said, recording his response, “I’ll be safe. I know that’s probably a stupid promise to make when we’re this far apart and you’ve seen the stupid shit I pull, but I promise I will. I didn’t ask you to stay on Earth just to leave you there alone to deal with the stuff men on the Council without any back-up.”

He hesitated, swallowing a lump in his throat. “I know you told me about my father and everything that happened that day that I didn’t see, but it doesn’t change what happened. He protected me and I protected you and I don’t regret that. Thank you, for putting up with my bullshit despite everything.” 

He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “I’m not good at this part, but you’re important to me too. I hope you know that. I’ll see you back on Earth when this is over.” 

He cut the transmission and sent it off before he could overthink it. He rubbed his face and stretched his neck. It popped, satisfyingly, and Felix reopened his eyes and pushed off the bench. He almost tripped and fell back onto the bench because someone had snuck up on him. He scowled and folded his arms. 

“How the hell do you move so quietly for a man that big?”

Dimitri gave him a faint smile. “Come on, Felix, I didn’t think I was being that quiet. I rather think you were just distracted.”

Felix narrowed his eyes. “Don’t even think about it.”

Dimitri laughed. “And I suppose you haven’t changed at all, have you?”

“It hasn’t been that long since we’ve seen each other,” Felix grumbled. “I was on the Fhirdiad with you.”

Dimitri pressed his lips together and nodded. His eyes darted, probably unintentionally to the thin metal braces still clamped around his legs. “I know. I am aware of what happened and what came next.”

“You had better be talking about the war that followed, not my injuries. I know what I signed up for when I joined the Marine Corps, Boar. You of all people should know that I am more than a little aware of the consequences a soldier in my discipline may face.”

“I’m sorry about your brother, Felix,” Dimitri apologized and Felix’s scowl deepened. 

“I was talking about my father.”

Dimitri’s eyes widened as if he hadn’t expected that response. “Oh, I didn’t realize.”

“I know,” Felix muttered. “Look, my father died to stop Cornelia. That’s all there is to it.”

Dimitri looked doubtful. “Did they ever catch the shooter?”

“No,” Felix admitted. “If the man was smart, he was on the first shuttle out of New York with the lockdown that followed the incident.” He lifted his chin, staring down Dimitri. “My father thought you would make a good king. Don’t let him down, Dimitri.”

Dimitri’s eyebrows ticked up at the sound of his name. It wasn’t the ridiculous nickname Felix had been calling Dimitri since the Eros Massacre and that in itself was enough of a surprise. 

“What do you think, Felix?”

“What does it matter what I think?”

“You’re one of my oldest friends,” Dimitri pointed out. “Am I not allowed to ask for your opinion?”

Felix sighed and sat down on the bench he had stood from. Dimitri stepped around him and sat on the one across from him. “I think you have a good heart. With the right people on your side, I think you could be great.”

Dimitri’s smile was genuine and Felix looked away, frowning. “Thank you,” Dimitri said quietly. “I hope that when this is all over, you might be one of those people who stands by my side.”

Felix looked back at him, his frown dropping. “What?”

“Unless, of course, you want to resume your service,” Dimitri continued, “I had hoped that you might be interested in following in your father’s footsteps. Officially.”

“Can you even do that? There are so many more experienced soldiers who you could choose.”

“And yet you and Annette are the ones who brought Cornelia down from right under her own nose. I would not extend this offer to you if I wasn’t serious,” Dimitri replied. 

Felix wrang his hands in front of him, staring down at his shoes. “I’ll think about it,” he muttered. “We have to survive this thing in front of us first, don’t we?”

Dimitri chuckled. “I guess we do.” He nodded to Felix’s comm. “You have a promise to keep, don’t you?”

Felix rolled his eyes. “Don’t start with me about that,” he threatened. 

Dimitri tilted his head. “Oh?”

“The woman,” Felix said, waving his hand vaguely. “The one who rescued you. What’s her deal?”

“Byleth?”

“She got shot for you in New York. Her hair changed colours and also apparently her ship doesn’t exist as far as both Mars and Earth are concerned. That doesn’t concern you?”

Dimitri shrugged. “Intrigues me, rather. Byleth has proven herself more than trustworthy to me in the past. She helped me contact you and your father originally. If she had wished me harm, she had more than enough time to will it upon me.”

“Fine,” Felix agreed, “but do you know that she’s not involved with any of Cornelia’s bullshit?” 

Dimitri paused. “I suppose I can’t prove it beyond what I know of her character and her life. It does not seem her style.”

“Cornelia was interested in her for some reason,” Felix reminded him. “Maybe you should figure that out.”

Dimitri’s face twisted. “I have not brought it up,” he admitted. “She got shot and I figured it wasn’t exactly the time to bring up such a thing.”

“Maybe not right now, but after Mars.” Felix shook his head. “Whatever we’re about to march into down on Mars isn’t going to answer all of our questions, I hope you know that.”

“I do, but, Felix, I don’t suppose there is anything I could say that would make you stay here?”

Felix stood up and stared at Dimitri. “No way in hell. I came with you this far and I’m with you until the end, alright? For my father and my brother. You can’t bench me on this.”

Dimitri nodded. “Alright. I trust you, Felix. And I’m grateful.”

Before either of them could say anything else, the door to the locker room opened.

* * *

**SPACESHIP DERDRIU, OUTER COLONIES**

Ingrid stopped halfway through the door, realizing that she had definitely entered in the middle of what appeared to be a very serious conversation. She clasped her hands together and pressed her lips together, preparing to backpedal out of the conversation that she had clearly interrupted between Felix and Dimitri. 

“Ingrid!” Dimitri exclaimed when he saw her. 

She froze and smiled sheepishly. “Hey,” she replied, “I didn’t mean to interrupt you guys.”

Felix shook his head. “You’re not interrupting.”

She raised an eyebrow at Dimitri as if to ask if he was sure, but the prince just shrugged so she relaxed, letting some of the tension drain out of her shoulders. “Right,” she said. 

She scuffed her toe along the floor of the locker room as she stepped into the room fully, letting the door swing shut behind her. Dimitri rose to his feet and stepped towards her. His hands twitched at his side and Ingrid smiled. 

She reached out and pulled on Dimitri’s wrist until he let her hug him. Even though she and Sylvain had arrived a while ago, it still felt like forever since she had seen Dimitri, especially since the last time she had seen him had been when he had boarded the transport to the Fhirdiad before everything went to hell. 

Dimitri hugged her back tightly, but he let go first, letting her pull away. Ingrid stepped back and put a hand on her hip, looking over at Felix. 

“Are you going to let me hug you too or do I have to fight you over this one?”

Felix huffed, but his wrists twitched up into a gesture that was almost welcoming and Ingrid pulled him into a fierce hug. Felix did, to her delight, actually give her a genuine, solid hug in return. It felt like the kind of thing that she had shared with him back when they were both training and when it had been thought that they might become brother and sister one day. 

It still made her heart ache, even now, to think of Glenn and what might have been, but it also made her stomach twist when she thought about what was currently happening. Sylvain wasn’t Glenn, but she didn’t want him to be. She just wasn’t sure even remotely how to broach that topic with Felix. 

Ingrid pulled back out of the hug, letting her hands linger on Felix’s shoulders as she looked him up and down. She frowned at the sight of the braces on his legs. “How is it?”

“Sucks,” he admitted.

Her frown deepened. “From the Fhirdiad?”

“Yeah, and all the bullshit after,” Felix muttered. 

Ingrid stepped back, crossing her arms and looking him up and down. “Have you driven your armour since?”

“No, haven’t piloted since. I–” he trailed off, furrowing his brow. “Oh, fuck. I haven’t even seen my armour since the Fhirdiad.”

Ingrid laughed. “Look at you, playing all diplomatic.” She looked back at Dimitri. “Your Highness, I thought that was your job, not ours.”

Dimitri’s smile slipped at the mention of Ingrid being diplomatic and she bit her lip, realizing her mistake a fraction too late. Almost instinctively, she tugged on the end of her braid and cast her eyes away from both of her childhood friends, but that didn’t help her avoid what came next.

“Were you two okay?” Dimitri asked. 

“We were fine,” Ingrid assured. 

Felix scoffed. “Bullshit. You got shot.”

Ingrid rounded on him, glaring, but he didn’t flinch. “They gave me a med dock,” she snapped. 

“Because Sylvain gave up his goddamn comm to save your life,” Felix reminded. 

Ingrid pressed her lips together. She really couldn’t argue with that point because it was true. Sylvain had taken an incredible, probably stupid risk to keep her alive with him on Mars. 

“But, Victoria,” Dimitri said, “weren’t you there when Cornelia attacked it?”

“The Martian woman, Dorothea, got us out. She and Ferdinand came back for us even though, in all likelihood, we should have died there,” Ingrid explained. “She was Martian Intelligence, so I guess she had enough of a heads up about what was incoming to get us out.”

Dimitri nodded. “Remind me to thank her again the next time I see her.”

Ingrid laughed lightly. “Yeah, she’s been surprisingly good to us. Broke us out of Thebe as well.”

“Thebe,” Felix said, his hand clenching and unclenching. “That’s where we’ll be landing, right?”

Ingrid nodded. “It’s the tactical capital of Mars right now.”

“Yes,” Dimitri agreed. “Claude confirmed to me that the drop teams will be landing as close to Thebe as we can manage.” He frowned. “It’ll be a slog from there, but we’re just waiting on the UEK reinforcements to arrive before we commence.”

Ingrid nodded. “Yeah, speaking of,” she said, turning back to Felix. “You with me on this one?”

Felix smirked and lifted his arm. She knocked her elbow against his in a motion that they had perfected through the academy. “Of course I am,” he said. 

Ingrid nodded, smiling. “Good.” She looked back at Dimitri. “I think you and your friend Byleth will be with us too.”

“And Sylvain,” Dimitri added.

“What?” Felix demanded. 

“He insisted,” Dimitri said. 

Ingrid sighed. “We’re not going to be able to talk him out of it.”

Felix huffed. “Well, maybe someone should talk to him about it.” He looked pointedly at Ingrid. 

Dimitri shrugged. “It’s a fair point. At the very least, tell him that he ought to be getting ready. I haven’t seen him in a few hours.”

Ingrid sighed. “Fine. I’ll look for him.” She stepped away, heading for the door, and then paused. She planted a hand on the doorframe and looked back at both of her friends. “It’s nice for all of us to be in the same place again.”

She didn’t wait for a response and slipped out of the locker room back onto the lower deck of the Derdriu. She fished her comm out of the pocket of her uniform and pinged Sylvain, requesting his location. His comm dinged back almost immediately and she realized that his location pin was actually drifting closer to hers as she walked towards the lift. 

She frowned and then the lift dinged open and Sylvain stepped out, pocketing his comm. 

“Hey,” he greeted. 

She stopped short, blinking at him. “Hi.”

“You called?” he asked, putting his hands in his pockets and smiling at her. 

“Oh, um,” she hesitated, suddenly feeling very claustrophobic. It wasn’t that she was nervous to be around Sylvain, it was just that this was the first time that they had been alone since Deimos Station when he had kissed her and she still wasn’t sure what to think about that. 

Sylvain chuckled at her blunder and he nodded to the lift. “Come on, Ing. Let’s go get suited up.”

She followed him into the lift and took a deep breath. He watched her openly and Ingrid steeled her nerves, collecting her confidence. 

“Why are you coming to Mars?” she asked. “You don’t have to come.”

“Nah, of course I do,” he replied. “You and Dimitri and Felix in one place? I can’t leave that lovely quartet unfinished.” 

“Sylvain,” she sighed. “Felix and I have twice as much military experience as you and Dimitri is, well, Dimitri.”

“And I have a job to do too. I have to make sure that you all get out of there alive.” 

His hand dropped to his side and he reached for hers. Ingrid watched, quiet, as he tangled their fingers together loosely and squeezed her hand. His palm was warm and rough and she bit the inside of her cheek and squeezed his hand back. 

“Dimitri is the priority, you know,” she mumbled, but the words felt flimsy in her mouth. 

“His Highness is yours and Felix’s job. The rest of you are mine,” Sylvain countered. 

Ingrid turned towards him as the lift continued to whir upward. “Sylvain.”

“Ingrid,” he parroted. 

She frowned. “What does that mean, Sylvain?”

He tilted his head, grinning. “Does this count as later?”

She blinked and barely had a chance to process his words before he was leaning down towards her and his lips flattened against hers. Ingrid dropped his hand and grabbed the front of his uniform without thinking, pulling him closer to her as she kissed him back. Sylvain’s arm wrapped around her waist and for a moment there was nothing but him. 

Then the lift dinged and the doors opened and Ingrid panicked, shoving Sylvain back. He stumbled back, smoothing out the wrinkles she had put in the front of his jacket, but he was grinning. Thankfully there had been no one waiting on the upper deck to witness them and Ingrid stepped out quickly and Sylvain followed her. 

“You know, it’s not as simple now,” she mumbled, changing the subject abruptly. “All this stuff with Mars.”

Sylvain nodded. “Because we know what it’s like there.”

She shook her head. “How the hell do we get a dozen UEN ships to the surface without getting blasted by Martian planetary defences?”

His lips twitched into a smirk. “Try the Martian transponder codes that Linhardt von Hevring just forwarded to the Alliance.”

Ingrid’s steps faltered. “Linhardt? The medic who saved you from the Cortezine poisoning?”

Sylvain nodded. They walked together for half a dozen paces away from the lift when Sylvain hesitated. “Hey, Ingrid.” He grabbed her hand, dragging her to a halt. “I know we can joke about it now, but that,” he gestured towards the lift behind them, “isn’t something that’s going away anytime.”

She stepped closer to him, smiling faintly. “I’ve noticed.” She rocked up on her tiptoes and ghosted a kiss against his lips. “Sylvain,” she continued, “Dimitri may be my priority, but you’d better stay alive, alright? We’re not done with later.”

He chuckled. “If I had my way, we’d never be done with later.”

Her smile widened. “Come on. We should get our gear.”


	25. Twenty Five - Our Chosen Paths

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The battle for Mars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're following me on Twitter you'll know I panic wrote this week and managed to get finished in time to upload this weekend! And this, this chapter, I've been waiting for this one >:)

Twenty-Five - Our Chosen Paths

* * *

**SPACESHIP DERDRIU, MARS EXTENDED AO**

“Hey! Von Riegan!”

Claude stopped mid-step, turning to look back at whoever was calling his name. It was the Martian spy, Dorothea Arnault, who had called his name. She was wearing a plain military uniform with all of the insignias removed and she had a hand on her hip. She was being shadowed by the Martian Captain, Ferdinand von Aegir.

He smiled at them. “Can we walk and talk? I need to get to the bridge for the final briefing.”

“Sure,” Dorothea replied immediately. She fell into step next to him and Ferdinand took his place on her other side. 

“I’m sure you have questions about how all of this is going to go down, right? You, Dorothea, don’t have family down there and, Ferdinand, your father isn’t in Thebe, but I’m sure you have every reason to ask after my plans.”

Dorothea’s eyebrow rose half a centimetre, betraying the fact that she was mildly impressed by him. “Not bad.”

“I make it a point to learn everything I can about the people who come clambering to join my cause, especially when we have a Martian spy and a captain, both of whom were a part of Edelgard’s inner circle.”

“It’s not just family,” Ferdinand said. “We’re both more worried about friends we have down there.”

Claude nodded. “Of course, a perfectly reasonable reaction. I can tell you that your friend Linhardt is the reason that this is going to go as smoothly as it will. He’s the one who sent us Martian transponder codes. Those will protect us when we land pods and they’ll scramble the Martian planetary defences enough that they won’t be able to fire at us because of our outgoing signal.”

Dorothea smiled. “Linhardt did that?”

“I believe your friend Bernadetta was the one who set everything up with the under-the-radar transmissions and the retrieval of the codes.”

“Sounds like Bernadetta,” Ferdinand said, smiling faintly. His smile dropped after a second. “And Hubert?”

“Ah, Mister Vestra,” Claude mused. “The one man who has been mostly capable of avoiding my intelligence efforts. He,” Claude paused, studying their expressions. Dorothea was clearly the better liar between the two as her features were unreadable, but there was a quiet almost desperate curiosity in Ferdinand’s expression that made Claude feel the slightest bit bad. “He has been as unreachable as your Emperor through all of this. I imagine he intends to stand with her to the end.”

Ferdinand’s expression cracked. “Sounds like Hubert,” he mumbled. 

Dorothea pressed her lips together. “And what is the plan when you land those Earthen ships on the surface?”

“That’s up the Earthen Prince,” Claude evaded smoothly. “I, myself, will be staying on the Derdriu through the process.” He waved a hand towards the lift in front of him. “This will take you all to the general mess area if you would like to await the briefing announcement.”

His words were a dismissal and neither of the Martians was oblivious enough to miss it. Just because they had defected did not mean they had his trust. Caspar had been with them for longer and Hilda had stuck her own neck on the line to bring him into the fold. These Martians, on the other hand, only defected once it became convenient for them and Claude wasn’t one to take the word of Sylvain Gautier and Ingrid Galatea alone as declarations of their loyalty. 

Dorothea stepped away from Claude first, her green eyes glittering sharply. “Best of luck to you, von Riegan.”

Claude looked between them. “Hopefully what happens next won’t confirm your beliefs that I’m a completely horrible person. I would never intentionally put innocent people in danger so let’s hope that your Martians are smart enough to know when a defeat is inevitable.”

Ferdinand dipped his head like he was conceding a chess match or something. “And I hope this Earth-Alliance assault remembers that someone will be left to do the rebuilding when the dust settles.”

Claude watched the two Martians disappear into the lift with an amused smile on his face. They had brought more than a bit of useful information off of Deimos before it had been destroyed and Lysithea was working with it as best as she could since there had been no physical data collected. Still, it made him even more suspicious of the files that Byleth had recovered from the life support systems of her ship. 

Claude continued on to the bridge where he found his fellow Alliance members waiting for him, along with Prince Dimitri and Byleth. The woman intrigued him more than he cared to admit, especially since her hair had changed colour after the gravity sickness medications, but he never pushed her. She wasn’t, after all, someone he was interested in angering. 

“Are we ready then?” Claude asked as he strode into the room. 

The chatter died down and people turned to look at him. Hilda passed him a datapad and then waved over the console, calling up a 3-D render of Thebe’s dome. Claude hummed and scanned over the info on the datapad, viewing the dropship personnel lists. Most of them were Earthen names that he didn’t recognize since most of the members of the Alliance would be staying in orbit for the duration of the assault on Mars. 

Claude lowered the datapad and looked around the room. The transmission for the main briefing was already recorded and ready to be played around the ship, but there were a few last points to wrap up with the people standing in this room. 

“If you’re here right now, then you know that what is about to happen isn’t just about defeating Mars. This is about a show of solidarity and independence for the Alliance and about ending a war that has killed thousands of innocent people.” Claude pauses looking at Marianne. “We fight for Vesta. And for Victoria and for Enceladus.” He looked at Dimitri. “For those who died in the pursuit of peace on Eros and near Venus.”

Hilda squeezed his arm, her expression pinched, and Claude lifted his chin. “There is going to be nothing simple or easy about this, but I would not have asked any of you to do this if I lacked the confidence that each of you could do what we’ve asked.”

He pushed the button to start the final briefing transmission and his own voice began playing over the intercom in the ship, relaying a message he had practiced dozens of times to perfect and polish. Leonie was the first person on the bridge to move, stepping forward and patting Claude’s shoulder before she disappeared to go round up her drop team. Lorenz and Marianne disappeared next, followed by Caspar, who squeezed Hilda’s hand before leaving. 

Ignatz took his seat at the pilot’s controls of the Derdriu and Ashe exchanged a few words with Ignatz before he and Petra took their leave. Raphael followed them out, flashing a big grin at them and Lysithea didn’t even look up from her comm as she left. That left Claude with Hilda, Dimitri, and Byleth. 

“Good luck,” he bid to Byleth and Dimitri calmly. “We’re getting you to the surface, but you’re on your own from there.”

“Yes,” Dimitri agreed. He held out a hand for Claude to shake. “Thank you, Claude, for everything that you have done for us.”

“Do me a favour,” Claude continued, as he shook the prince’s hand firmly. “Win. For all of us.”

Dimitri hesitated, but Byleth nodded. “We will.”

There was something about the way that she looked at him that made him feel like he was being looked _through_ and it was both unnerving and almost exciting. Claude nodded to them and Byleth slipped past, leading the way out. Dimitri lingered for only a moment longer before he shadowed Byleth off the bridge. 

Hilda said nothing to him as they stood side by side at the console. Claude called up the modelled projection of the dropship bay of the Derdriu where various dots, labelled with the names of soldiers and friends, darted around, getting ready. 

“Ignatz,” Claude called. “How are the Martian systems looking?”

“We’ve integrated seamlessly. We’ve been in inner orbit for a while and we’re approaching the point where we can release the ships,” Ignatz reported back. 

“The Earthen ships have made good on their promises,” Hilda continued. “I confirmed with Lysithea that there is a battle taking place in the Belt. A pretty big clash, but it’s enough to keep Mars’s attention while we launch the pods.”

“Good,” Claude said. He glanced at Hilda who was studying him. “Problem?”

She shook her head. “This just isn’t exactly what I figured we’d be doing when I came to Ceres.”

“Do you regret it?”

“No,” she said simply. “At least, not yet. Maybe if we send all our new friends down there to die, I’ll have a different answer.”

Claude nodded. “I guess that’s reasonable. Do you think they’re going to die?”

“I don’t know,” Hilda admitted, “but I do know that this won’t be over. All the stuff you’ve been doing with Lysithea and with Byleth, that won’t end here, you know that, right?”

Claude chuckled faintly. “No, I know. This is just the beginning of a very long push to the end. I can only hope that Edelgard sees what’s coming and makes a logical decision ahead of this.”

“Do you think she will?”

“No,” Claude confessed readily. “She’s already proved willing to die for her planet and this war. That won’t be changing. But, things work in mysterious ways. She and Dimitri knew each other as children,” he added. “Maybe that will sway her.”

“We’re in position now, Claude,” Ignatz reported, still staring at the targeting monitor in front of him. 

Claude’s lips twitched and he nodded. “Right then.” He leaned forward, pushing the transmit button on the console. “All pods, prepare to drop.”

He hesitated then, wondering if it was worth adding anything else, but his sentimental side won out. 

“Good luck.”

* * *

**THEBE, MARS**

Edelgard crossed her ankles and leaned forward, staring blankly at the far wall of the throne room. The red light flashing above her head did not bode well for what was to come, but she was beyond the point of reacting to it. Hubert stood just to her right, hovering, as he always did: her silent, deadly partner in everything they had done. 

She took a shaky breath in and leaned back, letting her head rest against the back of her throne. She let her eyes close and listened to the erratic beating of her heart. She was mildly surprised that it hadn’t given out yet. 

“Your Majesty,” Hubert cut in quietly. “I have confirmation that vessels bearing Alliance and UEN markings have landed just outside of Thebe.”

Edelgard’s lips twitched into a faint smile, but she didn’t open her eyes. Her eyelids were heavy. “Of course they have.” She drummed her fingers over the top of her right leg. “How is the evacuation going?”

“All civilian vessels have been launched from Romulus, Remus, and Concordia. The civilian evacuation of Thebe is complete, but there are still thousands of people trapped in the other domes. Refugees from Victoria have made the process difficult,” Hubert reported. 

Edelgard hummed under her breath. “Who is left in Thebe?”

“Soldiers. Marines, officers, captains.”

“Linhardt and Bernadetta?”

“Linhardt refused the evacuation order and,” Hubert hesitated and Edelgard opened her eyes, tilting her head towards him. His jaw set. “I have not been able to find Bernadetta.”

Edelgard frowned. “You tried her room?”

“Yes. She has disappeared and with her skills, there is no way to track where she has vanished to.”

Edelgard sighed. “I suppose it only makes sense. She likely was the reason that Ferdinand and Dorothea got off the planet so cleanly.” She broke off with a cough, lifting the dark handkerchief in her lap to her lips to dab away the blood that collected there. She sighed. “She probably hasn’t left Thebe, but she’ll be far enough underground that she’ll be safe until it all blows over.”

Edelgard rose to her feet and Hubert tensed, obviously startled by the motion. She waved him off and slowly descended the steps in front of her throne. There was a med dock pushed to the side of the room and a meeting table with a built-in holo display that had been transported to the room for ease of use. 

The med dock had given her time, but she wasn’t naive enough to pretend that it would be enough time to see her goals through. She flexed her hands at her sides, trying to ignore the tremor in them. Her skin was still tingling and she lifted her chin, pressing her tongue to the bottom of her mouth as it itched faintly. 

The symptoms of her heightened illness had been puzzling at first, but Edelgard was nothing if not determined. She took the regular gravity sickness medications and sat in the med dock for as long as she dared and she carried a handkerchief, either hers or Huberts, for her coughs or when her eyes bled. 

“Bring up the palace exterior,” Edelgard said as she stood over the holo. 

The projection flickered on, showing a live feed of the grounds surrounding the Imperial Summer Palace. So far, guards and defences were all that was seen, but outside the scope of the projection, there was the faint sound of gunfire: the sound of combat as it moved through the streets. 

“How are the dome’s defences doing?”

“They were disabled,” Hubert said.

Edelgard placed her hands on the edge of the table and tightened her grip until her knuckles whitened. “Of course. From inside the palace?”

“Yes,” Hubert said, his voice flat and not betraying his displeasure, but Edelgard knew him well enough. He had suspicions. He always did. 

“Would that have been a simple job?”

“For someone with Ferdinand’s clearance, yes.”

“I disabled his access,” Edelgard pointed out.

“But, Bernadetta could replicate it.”

Edelgard’s lips parted as she realized what had really happened. “This wasn’t Bernadetta. It was Linhardt.”

Hubert stepped to the edge of the table, walking around the console, studying it with a frown. “Lady Edelgard, with all due respect, Linhardt is a biologist, not a hacker.”

She laughed bitterly. “He didn’t have to hack it.” She looked down at the holo and dismissed the image of the palace exterior, right as a large explosion burst just outside of the camera’s line of vision. “Bring up the missile command logs,” she told the doc and the logs blinked onto the display. 

She pointed at the most recent entry on the list. Linhardt had access to the log and had been the last person to view it. Edelgard swiped two fingers through the air to call up the details of the log. Sure enough, Linhardt had disabled as many of the defensive structures on Mars as he could with the level of clearance that Edelgard had granted him. 

Surprise flickered on Hubert’s face. “He used the missile codes to do this,” he muttered. He frowned. “All of this would mean nothing to him though. How did he know exactly what he could and couldn’t shut down without raising alarms?”

Edelgard studied the log and pointed out a line of code. “This code isn’t in Martian script,” she said. She nodded. “He gave the codes to someone in the Alliance who used his access to disable everything in time with their assault.” She laughed bitterly. “Utterly brilliant.”

There was another boom in the background, but this time, the crystals on the chandelier above her head rattled and Edelgard looked up slowly. She frowned. Her defence systems had failed and she knew that her army wouldn’t be a match for Earth’s in a battle like this, especially with the Marine troop numbers that she had seen deployed. It was only a matter of time before they were breaking down the doors to her palace. 

“Hubert, I don’t suppose I could convince you to find transport out of Thebe, could I?”

“Of course not.”

Edelgard closed her eyes, fighting off a dizzy spell. Her mouth tasted like blood by the time the ringing in her ears subsided and she swallowed, refusing to spit. She took a short, bracing breath. 

“Open a line of communication. Direct to the AN Derdriu.”

She opened her eyes in time to see the confusion on Hubert’s face right as the transmission line blinked open, showing her a live feed of Claude von Riegan on the AN Derdriu. Claude rose out of a chair and walked towards the console, looking a bit curious by the comm that had flashed on. 

“ _Well_ ,” he said. " _This is a surprise_.”

“Tell your hacker that she’s brilliant. I never even noticed your intrusions until now,” Edelgard said, almost dismissively.

Claude laughed. “ _Right. She knows, but I’ll pass the sentiment along. Have you got it figured out then?"_

“You have Martian transponder codes,” Edelgard answered. “That’s why I can’t trace you or target you because you come up as Martian on all of my own scans and I seem to have lost my own programmer to your side as well.”

“ _She’s not physically here, but Bernadetta has certainly been of assistance to us during this movement_ ,” Claude replied smoothly. He tilted his head like he was trying to glean something from her over the transmission. “ _It’s an honour to finally exchange words with you, Your Majesty_.” 

Edelgard didn’t rise to his flattery. “For a man who incited a very violent revolution, you’re awfully calm about the whole war situation. Especially since your initial stance was so neutral,” she countered. 

Claude’s smile didn’t waver. “ _The revolution of the colonies was only violent because you escalated it."_

“You changed the order of things. I wasn’t going to sit by and let you rip it all away so easily.”

“ _Violence in the name of changing the natural order_ ,” Claude paraphrased. “ _I wonder why that sounds familiar._ ”

She laughed sharply. He did have a point. It was startling similar to her own goals. “It would have been a pleasure to put a bullet in you for all the trouble you caused me,” she said bluntly. 

His smile widened at that. “ _It would have been an honour if you had tried. And please don’t say those pitiful spies you sent to Ceres were your attempts at that. I should have at least warranted a black-ops squadron like you sent to take out the previous Governor of Callisto_.” 

She rolled her eyes. “Fair enough. You know, I am curious how you managed to persuade Lorenz Gloucester. From what I understood, he hated you.”

Claude shrugged. “ _Common enemies and a more liberal view than his father held_.”

Gunfire echoed behind her, sounding much, much closer than it had before. Edelgard stiffened and she watched Claude perk up a bit as he obviously picked up on the background noise. From the scanner blockers that were in place around the palace, she realized that this was probably the first real indication he had had that the assault was actually continuing as planned. 

“Do you hate me for what I’ve done?” she asked suddenly. “You don’t know me or what I’ve been working under my entire life, but I do wonder.”

“ _I think you are lost and misguided and probably a fool for rejecting an olive branch when it was extended to you. If it was up to me, I would not hear you out any further. You destroyed Vesta. Those were my people. Not Earth’s. I won’t forget that._ ”

Edelgard nodded. “And Dimitri? What will he think?”

Claude’s smile changed into a bitter, almost sardonic smirk. “ _I suppose that would be a question you could ask him yourself, isn’t it?_ ” 

* * *

**THEBE, MARS**

Dimitri winced at the gunshot. Ingrid didn’t flinch, lowering her gun and stepping forward, her power armour thunking on the floor. Felix followed her, suited up in his own armour and Dimitri watched his friends advance down the hallway. Sylvain hesitated for a step, but then he continued after them. Mercedes and Leonie continued on too, but Byleth and Dedue lingered with him as he hung back for a moment. 

It had been a brutal advance through Thebe. The Martian transmission codes had been enough to get them safely to the surface of the planet and from there, they had fought their way into the dome and pushed through a dangerous assault that led them through the streets of Thebe towards the Imperial Summer Palace. 

Ingrid and Felix were probably the only reasons that Dimitri was still alive. With their power armour, they were able to scout ahead, as well as tank and return fire when it was directed in their direction. Between them and Byleth’s natural instinct for how to navigate through the streets of Thebe, they had advanced more quickly than they probably should have been able to. 

Once they had reached the palace, it had been another, fiercer battle. Leonie’s arm had been nicked by a bullet, but she had been patched up and cleared by Mercedes to continue and they had finally broken through the front of the palace. Ingrid had taken the lead then, using a map she had been given by Dorothea to lead them towards the throne room. 

She didn’t say anything about being back in the palace and it was hard to read her body language through her armour, but Dimitri could see the uncomfortable tension in Sylvain from the moment that they entered the palace. Dimitri was more than ready for all of this to be over. 

From when they broke into the palace, it didn’t take too long to fight their way to the inner sanctum towards the throne room where they had been told Edelgard would be waiting. There were comm-blockers up all around the palace, so there was no way to get a message out to Claude or anyone else. They were on their own. 

“Dimitri,” Byleth said, reaching out to touch his arm. 

He shook himself, gathering his thoughts. “Yes,” he said. “I’m coming.”

Dedue frowned but said nothing as Dimitri led the way after Ingrid and the others until they stopped in the middle of a long, wide corridor, staring at a pair of heavy, wooden doors that sealed the end of the hallway. 

“This is it,” Sylvain confirmed. 

Dimitri took a deep breath. “What are the chances we get shot the minute we open that door?”

“Low,” Felix said immediately. “If they weren’t out here defending the door, they won’t be guarding it inside.” He looked back down the hallway. “I’m going to stay here and keep guard.”

“I will stay with Felix,” Dedue said. 

“As will I,” Leonie agreed. 

Mercedes pursed her lips. “I should stay and watch Leonie’s arm, but do shout if you need me.”

Dimitri looked at Sylvain and Ingrid and at Byleth. “Alright.”

Byleth tilted her head, staring at the door. “How do we do this?”

Ingrid scoffed. “Please, allow me.”

Ingrid stepped forward, her armour creaking, and she planted a solid kick at the crease of the doors. There was a splintering crack and they swung inward. She stepped through the doors, her arm cannon raised to defend herself as she did so. 

Dimitri took a deep breath and followed after Ingrid. Byleth stayed close to him and Sylvain brought up the rear as the four of them stepped into the room. The massive doors swung shut behind them and Dimitri took in the grand throne room. 

It was in disarray compared to how it had looked on transmissions and in newsfeeds in the past. There was a temporary console set up in the centre of the room and a med dock shoved to one side. The grand chandelier caught the light, glistening and quivering from the action that was sending tremors through the whole palace. 

Edelgard stood, dressed in a simple black suit, at one end of the table and a man with dark hair and a perfectly pressed military uniform stood just behind her. 

“I would say I’m surprised to see you, Your Highness, but that’s not entirely true,” Edelgard said calmly. 

Her hair was white. Dimitri had seen it a dozen times on a dozen projections since they were kids, but for some reason, it was still surprising to him. He stepped forward without thinking, still staring at Edelgard. For all their differences and the war that broadened the gap between them, Dimitri looked at her and still saw the young girl he had known on Earth when she had been in New York. 

“El,” he said, his voice softer than he had intended. 

Her brow twitched and she looked confused for a brief second. “What?”

Dimitri stopped himself from advancing again. “That was what I called you when we were children. When you spent time on Earth.”

Edelgard’s mouth opened and then closed and Dimitri saw recognition flit onto the face of the man standing just behind her. Her hands clenched visibly on the table in front of her. “That doesn’t matter. None of it does.” She pressed her lips together and gave him a cool look. “I suppose you’re here to tell me that I’ve lost.”

“No,” Dimitri said. “I’m here to ask you why you fought.” He stepped closer to her, almost cautiously. 

“For Mars,” Edelgard responded immediately. “Because Mars is done being stepped on and coerced and exploited by Earth.”

Dimitri hesitated. He knew that his planet’s treatment of Mars had been contentious and, likely, completely unwarranted in several situations, but that had been under his father or his grandfather or while Cornelia had led the Security Council. 

“You would not talk to me,” he pointed out. “How does a war fix any of that?”

Edelgard’s jaw tightened. “I supposed it didn’t.” She dropped her eyes. “I never intended for the war to lead to what it has.”

Dimitri stepped closer to her again. “Then let us end it here. No one else has to die for this war.”

Edelgard laughed bitterly and it turned into a cough halfway. Her hand flew to her mouth, but Dimitri was close enough to her now to see the red that stained her fingers as she wiped the blood away. 

“I’m already dead,” she said bitterly. “The least I can do is see through something that I should have finished when it was first attempted.” Her chin lifted. “Arundel might have gone behind my back to take out the Fhirdiad, but he wasn’t entirely wrong. The system needs to change.”

Dimitri frowned. “Then help me change it.” He stepped another step closer to the table, but his hand dropped to his side, tightening over his holstered weapon. “El.”

She smiled at him and her teeth were stained red. Her draw was faster than his as she pulled her trigger. Blinding pain pierced through Dimitri’s left shoulder and he drew his own weapon, aiming straight for her chest. The gun kicked in his hands and Edelgard stumbled back, curling a hand across her stomach. The man at her side moved, but there was a crack of gunfire as Ingrid’s arm cannon fired, catching him in the shoulder, the stomach, and the leg, causing him to collapse. 

“Dimitri!” Byleth exclaimed, charging forward. 

She caught him when he stumbled, pressing her hands over the wound, but Dimitri just staggered forward, towards Edelgard. Byleth didn’t stop him, just held him up as he stepped forward again until he could look down at her where she had fallen. Her eyes were closed and there was a faint smile on her face. Blood was pooling on the floor around her. 

“El,” he murmured. 

“You have to finish it,” she said, catching him off guard. Her chest heaved in a ragged breath. “You have to finish this.”

Her eyes opened and fixed on Dimitri for a moment and then they slid to Byleth. Her lips parted and then she shuddered, coughing. The cough brought up more blood, staining her teeth and lips further, but she was still staring at Byleth. 

“You’re the one,” she said, her voice barely more than a wheezing tone. “The one that he wants. The one he was trying to replicate.” Her lips twitched into a smile. “You have to finish it.”

Dimitri grit his teeth against the pain flaring in his shoulder and stared at her. “What are you talking about?”

Edelgard’s shaking hand slid into her jacket’s pocket, pulling out a comm that was stained with her own blood. She couldn’t do much besides pull it out as her arm strength failed her. She rested it against her chest and smiled at Byleth and Dimitri. 

“Finish it,” she said again. 

Dimitri watched as Edelgard’s chest fell and did not rise again. Her violet eyes stared flatly upward and the comm rested against her stomach. Dimitri pulled away from Byleth’s touch and bent down, ignoring the flare of pain in his shoulder. He picked up the comm and straightened up. It was covered in blood. 

“It’s over,” he said quietly. His own voice sounded hollow in his ears. 

“Dimitri,” Byleth said quietly. He looked at her. She was looking down at the still bodies of Edelgard and Hubert. “I don’t think it is.”

He looked at the comm he was holding and his stomach twisted. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few things to note:  
> 1\. This chapter is the first one since way back in Chapter 1 to feature Edelgard, Claude, and Dimitri's POVs together and they are in reverse order from their original appearances.  
> 2\. This chapter's title is a blatant rip from the game, and I am not sorry.  
> 3\. This chapter features every narrator except Annette in some capacity and I kind of regret that I didn't manage to get her in.  
> 4\. This chapter, like Chapter 5, 10, 15, and 20, features a major climactic moment (20 is the only one of this group that does not have a major character getting shot, interestingly enough)  
> 5\. I've officially noted the final chapter count as I am getting closer to finishing the draft of this entire fic. 
> 
> and 6. I love you all and thanks for reading, having my back, and supporting me through this crazy process ;)


	26. Twenty-Six - Crossroads

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mercedes heals. Sylvain speaks up. Dorothea grieves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> But, it's not the weekend, Nicole, you may be thinking. 
> 
> I'm here to say that five people voted for a space fic preview in a Twitter poll I held yesterday and today's my birthday so _I do what I want, have some free spacefic_. I think... I also managed to actually keep the fact that I was going to post this a secret from my mutuals which is A SHOCKER. anyway, s p a c e time.

Twenty-Six - Crossroads

* * *

**THEBE, MARS**

When the gunshots fired, Mercedes, Dedue, Felix, and Leonie burst into the throne room, weapons raised. The scene was an unexpected one: Sylvain and Ingrid stood, unharmed, in the middle of the room while Dimitri and Byleth stood over the Martian Emperor’s prone, still body. Dimitri was leaning on Byleth and Mercedes hurried towards them. 

Byleth’s hands were red and sticky with Dimitri’s blood, but the UEK Prince was still staring at Edelgard. Mercedes dug out a bandage from her medkit and Byleth helped her pull Dimitri away, moving so that he sat on the stairs in the centre of the throne room. He didn’t tear his eyes off of the Emperor and he barely reacted when Mercedes started wrapping a bandage tightly around his shoulder. 

“Byleth,” Dimitri said finally, as Mercedes was tying off the bandage. “The comm.”

Mercedes watched him hold out a small handheld comm to Byleth who took it. Byleth was sitting on the step right below Dimitri and though she took the comm, she was looking at Dimitri, her expression worried. Mercedes gently poked at the area around the wound and Dimitri winced. 

“Sorry,” Mercedes said quickly. “I just wanted to make sure that it’s tied tightly. We should get you somewhere that we can get the bullet out.”

Dimitri shook his head. “Please, I need to know what is on that comm.”

Byleth’s brow creased. “Mercedes?”

Mercedes looked at the wound. It hadn’t yet bled into the bandage she had tied so she pressed her lips together. “He’s alright for now.”

Byleth stood up, her hand lingering on Dimitri’s arm. Dedue strode over towards Mercedes and looked down at Dimitri, a small frown on his face. Byleth walked back over to the console that Edelgard had been standing in front of and tapped the comm to the edge of it. The console flickered to life with a 3-D schematic of the Imperial Palace, but Byleth waved it aside, calling up the contents of the handheld comm that Mercedes assumed to be from Edelgard. 

The console then lit up with what looked like weapon schematics. Byleth frowned and looked like she was about to dismiss them when Sylvain stepped forward suddenly. 

“Wait! Ingrid, I’m not crazy, right? These are the same plans we saw on Deimos,” Sylvain said. 

Ingrid’s lips pressed together as she studied the plans. “Yes, they do appear to be the same or at least very similar.” 

“Dedue,” Dimitri said quietly and Mercedes’s head snapped back towards him. “Help me.”

Dedue looked at Mercedes for permission and she nodded. He reached down then and slung Dimitri’s good arm over his shoulder, pulling him up to standing and helping him over to the table. Mercedes hiked her medkit up on her shoulder and trailed after them, staring at the hologram with the rest of the group. 

“This marking,” Ingrid said, pointing out a small symbol. “We saw this on Deimos as well. With the stealth plans and that research progress.”

Sylvain frowned. “When we were on Deimos, I made a point about my father and his finances. He and some of the other members of the Security Council that you deposed back on Earth had been making some investments on Selene. I wanted to flag them earlier but I just never had the chance.” He looked at Byleth. “What else is on this comm? If it’s going where I think it is, then I already know where we have to go next.”

Byleth pulled up the next scan on the comm and it showed what looked like a military compound, but it was the location tag on the blueprints that really caught everyone’s attention. For a moment, they were all silent as they stared at it and Mercedes swallowed shakily. 

“Selene,” she read out loud, breaking the deadlock. 

“What does this mean?” Dimitri asked. 

Ingrid’s frown deepened. “This is the same stealth base we saw in the logs on Deimos. This says it’s on Selene.”

“It means that this base,” Sylvain said, pointing at it and sounding a bit disbelieving, “has been on Selene this entire time.”

“Who are these people?” Leonie asked, folding her arms. 

Byleth inhaled sharply. “They’re the people who took down the Fhirdiad. They’re the people who did this to Lysithea and–” she cut herself off, pulling a comm out of her pocket and tapping it against the console. 

The display changed to show off a group of medical records that Mercedes instantly fixated on. As she digested the information in front of her, her lips parted in surprise as she began to understand what the complicated records indicated. The files were jumbled and hard to read, but from the technical jargon she could grasp, it was enough to figure out what had happened. 

“These people were on Selene,” she breathed. “They were on Selene and someone experimented on them like animals.”

Byleth crossed her arms, suddenly looking uncomfortable. “This woman,” she said, nodding to the file on the left for a smiling woman named Sitri, “she’s my mother.”

Mercedes studied her. She could see the resemblance between the two women in high, arching cheekbones and in the glittering green eyes, which she had to pause to remind herself hadn’t been there until Byleth had been exposed to gravity sickness medications. 

“But what does this mean?” Felix asked gruffly. 

“It means that whoever started this war, whoever was pulling strings on Earth and Mars,” Dimitri explained, “has been operating off of Selene the entire time.”

“The Security Council,” Sylvain said, snapping his fingers. “I bet you that Cornelia and my father have been in contact with and are connected to whoever this is, probably even closely associated with them. And Dorothea said something about Edelgard’s uncle, a man named Arundel, who they kicked off of Mars because he was pulling strings.”

Dimitri stiffened. “I know Arundel. He was the one who brought Edelgard to Earth when we were children.”

Mercedes pressed her lips together. “We should probably look over all of this with the Alliance, shouldn’t we?”

Leonie nodded. “Right. Lysithea and Claude will both likely have input for this.” She glanced at Byleth. “Especially if they’ve seen those records plus what you two,” she waved at Sylvain and Ingrid, “are saying.”

Mercedes turned to Dimitri. “Please, Your Highness, I know you might be feeling alright at the moment, but you have still been shot. Surely this conversation can be continued in the med bay of the Derdriu?”

Dimitri sighed, but he nodded, resigned. “Alright. We will proceed back to the dropship and recall Alliance and Earthen forces back to the Derdriu.” He glanced down at Edelgard’s body. “But, I’ll confess, I’m unsure how to tell the people of Mars that their Emperor is dead. Thebe, as we noticed, was more than a little abandoned. How can we tell the Martian people that it is safe for them to return?”

“If you tell them to return, the vacuum of power may just lead to more problems,” Dedue pointed out. 

“If I’m correct,” a new voice cut in suddenly, “then you already have the people you need on your side.”

Everyone spun around and multiple weapons were drawn and aimed at the young man who stood at the door. He looked unconcerned by the weapons, and his gaze was fixed on Byleth’s hair. Mercedes recognized that he was wearing a lab coat common to Martian medics, but before she could speak out to say anything about his sudden appearance, Ingrid stepped forward, dropping her arm cannon down and holding up a hand to the rest of the Alliance-UEK group. 

“Wait! This is Linhardt. We wouldn’t be here without his support,” she explained. She glanced back at the Martian. “What are you talking about?”

“Ferdinand von Aegir holds a very high military title. His father was the previous Prime Minister of the Martian parliament before it was disassembled,” Linhardt explained. “Both he and Dorothea Arnault are excellent public speakers with good political connections. I’m sure with access to Martian technology, they could reassemble a parliament quicker than any outside effort could.”

Sylvain nodded. “That’s reasonable.” He looked at Dimitri and the others. “I trust Linhardt. He saved my life here on Mars and I trust Ferdinand and Dorothea because they brought us to Deimos and they saw what we saw. If we need someone to manage the situation here, I don’t know anyone who would be better.”

“Okay,” Dimitri said, nodding. “If you trust them,” he said, looking between Ingrid and Sylvain, “then that’s enough for me.”

“Then we should get you to a medbay,” Byleth said, looking at Dimitri’s bandaged shoulder. 

Mercedes nodded. “That would be for the best.”

Byleth recalled the display on the holo to the comm and pocketed both her own comm as well as the comm with the information from Edelgard. Dedue turned, guiding Dimitri, and caught Mercedes’s eye. She reached out, squeezing his hand lightly. Her fingers felt cold and small compared to his, but he gave her a small, reassuring smile before he helped Dimitri start heading towards the exit of the palace. 

Mercedes followed them quickly. Byleth fell into step beside her, eyes fixed on Dimitri and Leonie took the lead, guiding them out of the palace. Felix, Ingrid, and Sylvain lingered behind, as did the Martian, but Mercedes didn’t let herself worry about that. 

“He’ll be alright, won’t he?”

Mercedes tipped her head towards Byleth, acknowledging the question. “Yes. The injury to his shoulder is an easy enough fix in a med dock,” she assured. “But, as for whatever else is going on,” she paused, stealing a quick look back at the crumpled form of the Martian Emperor, “I don’t think it’s going to be that simple.” 

Mercedes studied Byleth’s profile for a moment. The woman was an enigma when they had met, but with the admission that her mother had been one of the people who had been supposedly experimented on by the shadowy research group on Selene, she was even more mysterious. It certainly made Mercedes reconsider many of her assumptions about the reaction to the gravity sickness meds. 

“Are you alright?” she asked Byleth. 

Byleth’s head snapped to her, bright green eyes widening. “I’m fine.”

Mercedes touched her arm reassuringly and looked back at Dimitri and Dedue ahead of them. “It’s been a lot to digest recently,” she noted. Byleth’s lips pressed together and Mercedes dropped her hand. She couldn’t offer advice if it wasn’t wanted. “But, yes, Dimitri should be fine,” she finished. 

* * *

**SPACESHIP DERDRIU, MARS AO**

“Sylvain.”

Sylvain’s head snapped up and he looked to the door of his cabin. Felix stood there, arms folded, leaning against the doorframe. Sylvain jolted to his feet and fumbled with his hands, eventually just dropping them to his sides. 

“Hey,” he replied. “What’s up?”

“Dimitri’s out of surgery,” Felix answered. “He’s fine, as expected, and Claude’s dissecting the data with the help of the Martians.”

Sylvain nodded slowly. Along with Linhardt, the Martian coder, Bernadetta, who had helped them access things on Deimos, had joined the Alliance, offering to help decode as much of Edelgard’s final comm as she could. They had been working with Lysithea and Ashe pretty much non-stop since everyone had arrived back on the Derdriu. 

The entire ship had basically been in full-on chaos since everything had ended. Dimitri had sent a series of transmissions out to Earth, Claude was handling the Alliance, and they had placed Ferdinand and Dorothea in handling Mars’s reaction. So far, things had been going pretty smoothly, but Sylvain was feeling out of his depth. 

“So, what else is up?” he asked, still staring at Felix. 

“Why are you sulking in your room?” Felix asked bluntly. 

Sylvain blinked. “Uh, I don’t know? Is there anything I could be doing? I don’t have the military connections that you and Ingrid have, nor do I have the sway that Dimitri can pull back on Earth. I don’t even have the connections that your girl does,” Sylvain pointed out. 

Felix frowned. “You have your own influence, Sylvain. Dimitri appreciates your advice.”

Sylvain shrugged. “I guess, but Byleth and Dedue have been circling him like protective sharks since we got back.”

“Ingrid, then,” Felix countered. 

Sylvain pressed his lips together. “That’s more complicated.”

Felix sighed. “You’re stupid, you know that?”

Sylvain narrowed his eyes. “I mean you’ve told me that before, but you don’t know what happened.”

He shrugged. “You two were imprisoned together. I can make a few assumptions. Besides, Ingrid has been obvious enough about her side of whatever happened, so I think you just need to get over yourself.”

Sylvain ran a hand through his hair. “I’m in love with her, Felix.”

“Then tell her that.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“Why not?” Felix demanded. 

“Glenn,” Sylvain answered simply. 

Felix tensed at the mention of his brother. “What the fuck does he have to do with it?”

Sylvain stared at him. “They were engaged, Felix. Glenn was my friend and Ingrid is my friend and I still feel like I’m trespassing on something there whenever I do anything.”

“Glenn is dead,” Felix snapped. “Ingrid is over him and she’s in love with you so get your head out of your ass and do something about it.”

Sylvain frowned. “We’re in the middle of the war, can’t I be forgiven for not wanting to do anything stupid?”

Felix gave him a dead look. “You’re a dumbass. The war is basically over and you’re in love with her. We’ve all lost enough in this, Sylvain. Don’t lose her too.”

Sylvain walked over to Felix. “For a guy who seems to be avoiding going back to Earth to his own girl, you’re giving me an awful lot of advice.”

Felix rolled his eyes. “She’s on her way up, stupid.”

Sylvain blinked. He wasn’t quite expecting that out of Felix, but he supposed that it made enough sense. Felix had, apparently, gotten his shit together since Sylvain had been away. It made him feel kind of stupid. 

“I just don’t know what to say to her,” he admitted. “It’s like we just dropped a bomb on everyone with everything that happened on Mars. We went down there expecting to end the war only to figure out that we’ve all been manipulated.” Felix’s expression shifted then and Sylvain blinked, not quite expecting the change. “Uh, Fe?”

“They killed my father,” Felix dropped bluntly. His eyes dropped to the ground and bitterness flicked onto his face. “He was killed by bullets manufactured on Selene.”

Sylvain blinked. “Oh, fuck.”

Felix stepped back. “There’s a lot of information to be briefed on if you’re done sulking.”

Sylvain followed him out of the cabin, frowning. “Hey, are you going to actually quantify that with anything? Felix, I still don’t even know what _happened_ to your father.” 

Felix started walking down the hall and Sylvain jogged to catch up to him, falling into step with his friend. Felix was silent for a moment and the thudding of their boots on the metal deck of the ship was the only sound, but then he sighed. 

“He was shot right in the middle of the atrium of the HQ. Bullets made on Selene,” Felix explained. “At first I had thought it was just because he was Cornelia’s last real opponent on the Security Council, but I think it was more than that. Annette,” Felix trailed off, clenching his fists and Sylvain frowned. 

“Fe?” he prodded gently. 

“Annette says that the shot was meant for me.”

Sylvain's breath caught. “What? Why?”

“The Fhirdiad, if I had to guess. The shit that I did or didn’t know. And also, my father had already lost one son. I think Cornelia assumed that losing a second, especially after what happened with Dimitri and you and Ingrid would have pushed him to resign. Instead, he got himself killed to save me.” Felix’s voice was hard, but Sylvain knew him well enough to pick up on the rough edges of grief in it. 

“Shit, Felix, I’m so sorry.”

Felix shook his head. “Whatever. I thought it was just Cornelia, but with everything we’ve found out recently, that’s obviously not true. I’m hitting the ground running on Selene.” He reached up and punched Sylvain in the arm. “Don’t make Ingrid wait because she’ll be down there with me.”

“Did I hear my name?” 

Sylvain’s head snapped up and he spotted Ingrid walking towards them, the Martian, Dorothea, standing next to her. The Martian looked between the three of them and fixed her gaze on Sylvain’s face and the startled expression he knew he was wearing. He smoothed his surprise into a smile, but apparently not quick enough. Dorothea fixated on Felix, holding out a hand. 

“Sergeant Fraldarius,” she greeted. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”

Felix shook her head. “Likewise.” He glanced between Sylvain and Ingrid and then turned back to Dorothea. “I have a connection on Earth that you should probably be in contact with.”

Dorothea’s smile turned wicked. “Excellent. Let’s go find Ferdinand and get right on that.”

Sylvain watched helplessly as Dorothea ushered Felix away, leaving him alone with Ingrid. Ingrid watched them go curiously, blinking. Sylvain shuffled his weight and looked anywhere but at Ingrid. 

“Have you heard the plans?” she asked, letting his obvious awkwardness slide. 

“Some of them,” Sylvain admitted. “I was actually just going to find out where I would be most useful.”

Ingrid blinked. “With me and Felix on the surface probably.”

Sylvain frowned. “I’m not a Marine.”

“Anymore,” she pointed out. “You have the training and you have a personal stake in all of this too.” She stepped a bit closer to him. “This was partly your father’s mess, Sylvain.”

He sighed. “Ingrid, we don’t know what kind of weaponry or opposition we’re going up against.”

“It’s a good thing I put in a requisition with Annette to repossess your old armour. Your father kept it, you know. It was in his seized assets when he was arrested.”

Sylvain stared at her. “My armour?”

She nodded. “You said it yourself. It’s going to be a big fight.” Her lips curled into a smile. “Besides, we’re not done with Later, right?”

Sylvain's heart swelled and he was talking before he could stop himself. “I’m in love with you,” he blurted. 

Ingrid blinked, leaning away like she was taken aback. Sylvain winced at his stupidity, but Ingrid’s lips curled into a smile. “Huh,” she said, recovering and stepping closer to him. “And here I thought I was going to have to say it first.”

Sylvain gaped at her. “What?”

Ingrid rolled her eyes and leaned up on her tiptoes, pulling his lips to hers. Sylvain stood there like an idiot for a solid second before he finally jump-started his brain and managed to kiss her back. She smiled into the kiss and then pulled back. 

Sylvain let his hands fall to her waist as he held her, not letting her slip away from him. “I love you,” he said again. 

“I know.” She patted his cheek. “I love you too, Sylvain.”

He frowned for a second. “Is this, like, an HR violation or something?”

Ingrid laughed at him. “You’re an idiot.”

“I’m yours.”

“Sure,” she agreed. “But, come on. We do have a briefing we should get to. We’re going over the plans and everything for landing on Selene. Everything’s up in the air, but Lysithea and Bernadetta are trying to create transmission codes that can get us in close enough to land an assault.”

She slid her hand into his and he linked their fingers as she pulled him along towards the bridge of the Derdriu. 

“We may not know what kind of defences they have, but we know it’ll be something close enough to what they used to take out the Fhirdiad,” Sylvain pointed out. 

Ingrid nodded. “Yes, that has been brought up. I think the current plan is to try and recreate whatever the AI of the Seiros was doing to avoid all scanners, both Martian and Earthen. There’s been some discussion that it might be the best option.”

Sylvain hummed in agreement. “Have they thought about trying to restart the AI? I know that they’d been struggling to do it in the mainframe of the Seiros, but maybe if we tried on a smaller scale? Exported the code to a single console instead of an entire ship.”

Ingrid stopped walking abruptly and stared at him. “Sometimes you say things and I wonder how people ever thought you were stupid, Sylvain.”

He smiled. “Valid idea?”

“Great idea,” she corrected. She squeezed his hand and pulled him along. “Let’s go find Byleth and Lysithea.”

* * *

**SPACESHIP DERDRIU, MARS AO**

Dorothea and the Earthen Marine went their separate ways shortly after abandoning Ingrid and Sylvain together and Dorothea then continued on her previous quest, looking for Linhardt. It was a bit more difficult than she had anticipated. He had last been seen working on the bridge with the group trying to build a new transmission code, but he hadn’t been there when she had popped in to look. 

Following a hunch, she then made her way towards the science station. The Derdriu was now hosting all the most important political personnel in the system, so it stood to reason that their pursuits of scientific innovation were on hold which explained the crates of unused supplies and the lack of people she found as she made her way across the designated deck. 

“Dorothea?” 

She turned at the sound of her name, finding Caspar standing just behind her. He was wearing the Alliance colours and she smiled. She hadn’t really had much of a chance to speak with him since arriving on the Derdriu with how quickly things had unfolded with the mission to Mars. 

“Caspar,” she greeted. “What are you doing down here?”

He held up a comm. “Looking for Lin.”

Dorothea smiled. Her hunch was probably right. “Me too. Come on,” she beckoned, waving him to her side. 

Caspar jogged up to join her. “So, how’s all the stuff going on Mars?” he asked. 

Dorothea sighed. “It’s tricky. Ferdinand’s doing his best, but there are still a lot of people mad about a lot of things.”

Caspar frowned. “I heard from Randolph. He said that my dad was opposing Ferdinand and your ideas.”

Dorothea shrugged. “Some members of Parliament supported Edelgard. They don’t want to admit defeat in the war, no matter how Earth phrases it.”

“It wasn’t worth it,” Caspar says emphatically and Dorothea looks at him. For someone who had used to be so gung-ho about fighting, it was almost weird to look at Caspar now. He seemed to notice her odd look and he shrugged. “I have friends in the colonies and on Earth. I feel like I’m better now.”

Dorothea smiled. “I like this new you, Caspar. Very gallant.”

He frowned. “Come on, Dorothea, I’m not a kid.”

She shrugged. “I know. It’s just been a while since we’ve seen each other.”

Caspar fell quiet at that point. “Yeah, I guess it has. I’m glad you guys were able to join us up here.”

Dorothea twisted the cuff of her shirt as she thought about the implications of the statement. She and Ferdinand and Bernadetta and Linhardt almost didn’t leave Edelgard’s service. There was a good chance that if they hadn’t, they would have died just like Hubert on Mars when the Alliance and Earth came knocking. 

She didn’t get the chance to say anything before Caspar was suddenly breaking away from her, darting forward into the lab room. 

“Linhardt!” he cried out. 

Dorothea covered her mouth to hide her giggle as Caspar wrapped his taller friend up in a tight embrace, practically lifting him off his feet. Linhardt scowled immediately and batted at Caspar, motioning to be set down. Dorothea raised an eyebrow at him as Caspar set him down. Linhardt sighed and adjusted his coat. 

“Caspar, I am holding rare biological samples, I would appreciate it if you didn’t destroy them while greeting me,” Linhardt said dryly. 

“Sorry! It’s just been so long since I’d seen you!” Caspar said, sounding not the least bit sorry. 

Linhardt’s gaze turned to Dorothea. “Hello, Dorothea.”

“Hi Lin,” she greeted in reply. “What are you working on?”

“His serum,” a different voice answered and Dorothea turned, realizing that she and Caspar and Linhardt were not the only people in the room. Ferdinand was leaning against a cabinet nearby, having been the one to answer her question, and Bernadetta was sitting atop a lab bench, fiddling with her comm. 

Dorothea blinked curiously. “The Alliance coder? Are you trying to solve it for her?”

Linhardt nodded. “I had all this research I’d done for Edelgard, I figured I might as well finish it. Besides, her genetic situation is much less complex. As you pointed out from the files you found on Deimos, her condition was imposed first, almost like a test trial before it was given to Edelgard.”

Dorothea looked back at Ferdinand and Bernadetta. “And what are you two doing here?”

“There are a lot of people upstairs,” Bernadetta answered nervously. “I’ve been working all day on those codes and I just needed a break.”

Dorothea smiled sympathetically at Bernadetta. “Bernie, that’s completely reasonable. I was looking for a break myself.” Her eyes slid to Ferdinand. “Politics are exhausting.” 

He didn’t react to the subtle jab, but he did incline his head, looking around the room. “It’s strange to think that we are all that’s left of the old Mars,” he said softly. 

Bernadetta bit her lip, lowering her head and even Linhardt gave Ferdinand a strange look for the comment. 

“The old Mars?” Caspar asked. 

Dorothea pressed her lips together and stepped closer to Ferdinand, studying him. “He means Edie’s Mars, Caspar. With us and Hubie.”

“Oh,” Caspar mumbled. “Yeah, I guess this is it, isn’t it?”

Linhardt crossed his arms. “Are we having a moment of emotional commiseration now?”

Dorothea laughed. “Oh come on, Linhardt, they were your friends too.”

His mouth ticked down into a frown. “Yes, they were. But you weren’t there to see her at the end.”

Dorothea felt like she had been slapped. “What?”

Linhardt looked away. “Whoever that was at the end of this mess, that wasn’t Edelgard.”

Ferdinand laid a hand on Dorothea’s arm. “I think he’s right,” he said gently. “Edelgard understood power and politics and the way that those dynamics worked. She never would have put innocent people at risk like she did in not taking the olive branch extended by Earth.”

Dorothea frowned. “So you’re saying that Edelgard wasn’t herself.”

“What about Hubert?” Caspar asked. 

“He was with her until the end,” Bernadetta said quietly, lifting her head. “We all know what he was like.”

Dorothea studied Bernadetta. She was lying about something. There was something else about Hubert that she wasn’t saying. “Bernie?”

Bernadetta’s lip quivered. “Hubert let me go. After I sent Linhardt’s message, he found me. He knew what I did, but he let me go anyway. I don’t think Edelgard would have done the same.”

Ferdinand scrubbed a hand over his face. “A loyal man. Loyal to a fault, if you ask me.”

Dorothea glanced at him. She held her tongue about his own loyalty and his infallible ability to see the best in everyone. She had liked Hubert too. She had done a lot of her work with him since he was Edelgard’s right-hand man and the most ambitious, talented spymaster in Mars’s history. She had learned more than a few tricks from Hubert and had done him more than a few favours on sensitive missions.

She dropped her hand to her pocket and fished out the small flask she was carrying. Ferdinand raised an eyebrow at it and Dorothea popped the top off of it and held it up. She forced a smile, pushing back the sadness that curled in her stomach, ugly and potent. 

“To Hubert and Edelgard,” she offered. 

She took a swig and passed it to her right, holding it out to Caspar. Caspar grinned and took the flask, holding it up. “To our friends,” he toasted. 

He drank and passed it to Linhardt. Linhardt frowned, but he tilted his wrist in a half-hearted toast. “To ambition,” he muttered. 

He handed the flask off to Bernadetta after he took a short, almost non-existent sip. Bernadetta almost dropped the flask and Ferdinand reached over, steadying her hand. Bernadetta smiled shakily and lifted it up. “To change,” Bernadetta said. 

Ferdinand took the flask as soon as Bernie was done drinking and his eyes landed on Dorothea. Something in her stomach flipped, feeling warm as he watched her. He lifted the flask. “To our future.”

He drank and Dorothea watched his throat bob before he handed the flask back to her. She capped it and tucked it away, still watching Ferdinand. He didn’t look away from her and all the words she didn’t say on Deimos bubbled up in her mind suddenly along with a dozen apologies that she owed him. 

Linhardt seemed to notice that the atmosphere of the room had shifted and he glanced between Bernadetta and Caspar. Bernadetta seemed to be catching on, but Caspar was blissfully ignorant. Dorothea only dimly noticed Linhardt herd everyone out of the room with a mumbled farewell before she and Ferdinand were alone. 

“I didn’t let you say what you wanted to say back then,” she said the moment the doors hissed shut. “Maybe I shouldn’t let you say anything yet, but I have a feeling that we might not have time for this conversation later.”

Ferdinand pushed off the cabinet he was leaning against, taking a half-step towards her. “Dorothea,” he said. 

“Not Black Widow?” she teased faintly, stepping a fraction closer to him. 

Ferdinand’s lips twitched into a faint smile. “I probably should still be mad about that.”

“You’ll get over it.”

“I miss him, Dorothea. And Edelgard too.”

“I do too,” she assured quietly. “I don’t think this is going to get any easier, Ferdie.”

“But I’ll still be a man of too many words for you, won’t I?”

“I don’t know,” she said, leaning into him the tiniest bit, “I think your oration skills are growing on me.”

Her lips ghosted against his and then she stepped back before he could hold onto her. His bright eyes were fixed on her. 

“Save your words for when we win, Ferdie,” she suggested breathily. “We’re not done yet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sylvgrid!!!!!!!!!!! look posting the sylvgrid confession scene on my birthday is the only real solution. if you can't tell from my AO3, I love them. 
> 
> if you want to be part of more chaos, like asking for wip snips and getting an entire chapter instead, follow me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/nicolewrites37)
> 
> I've started drafting the ending for this lovely fic and i want to thank everyone again who has supported me through the process by leaving comments, gassing me up in the sylvgrid discord, following and encouraging me on Twitter, because none of this would have happened without you guys. special shout out to my mutuals who greenlighted me to even write this when i was super sure that i didn't have time for it (i'm still not sure that i do, but I've loved writing it, so you win some and lose some).


	27. Twenty-Seven - Fallen Star

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Annette arrives. Lysithea investigates. Ashe flies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! this is the usually scheduled weekend update after the fun surprise last Tuesday
> 
> if you follow me on Twitter you might have noticed that I mentioned no update next weekend since I'm in papers hell for school right now. that means this is probably the last update for November, but I promise that 28 will make up for that one week break ;)

Twenty-Seven - Fallen Star

* * *

**SPACESHIP DERDRIU, MARS AO**

When the shuttle docked, Annette felt nervous. She had never been off of Earth before, much less all the way to a ship as large and as important as the lead ship in the Alliance Navy. The ride had been bumpy and different from what she had expected and the grav boots that she had been supplied pinched her toes a bit. 

Her hands didn’t shake as she unstrapped her buckles once the ship’s engine died away in the docking bay of the Derdriu. She stood up, clicking the heels on her boots to engage them, and made her way towards the shuttle doors. They didn’t open right away, as the bay had to pressurize, but it was only a minute before they did. 

Annette started descending the ramp out of the ship almost before it had stopped moving and she saw that her welcoming committee consisted of two young women, both of whom Annette recognized, but one of whom she hadn’t seen in what felt like ages. She brightened at the sight of the Marine. 

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “Hello!”

The Marine, Ingrid, smiled at her. “It’s Annette, right? Welcome to the Derdriu.”

Annette stepped off the ship’s ramp and looked around, admiring the large, metallic inside of the docking bay. Her stomach flipped at the thought of being out in space and her only security being the metal hull of the ship, but she was excited too. She had done all of her work in stopping the war back down on Earth and it was exciting to finally say that she had left her home planet. 

She wondered what her father would think. 

Mercedes, the other woman who had come to greet her, beckoned her forward. “Come on,” she urged, “let’s get out of the docking bay before they need to refuel the shuttle and everything.”

Annette nodded, stepping forward, and following the two women as they led her out of the bay. When they entered the ship proper, Annette cleared her throat, suddenly feeling a bit antsy. 

“How is everything? I heard that His Highness was shot!”

Ingrid nodded. “Yes, he was, but he’ll be fine.”

“The wound wasn’t anything serious, I assure you,” Mercedes continued. “The prince will recover just fine and thanks to the cooperation of some parties on Mars, we managed to make it through almost completely unscathed.”

Annette breathed out in relief. She had been sending comms back and forth with Felix before the attack on Mars, but she hadn’t had much time to communicate with him since it had ended. It seemed like he was always running around, doing favours for the prince or coordinating the Marines that were in Earth’s fleet. 

“Did you bring the report from the Security Council?” Ingrid asked. 

Annette nodded, digging out her datapad. “It’s on here.”

“Good,” Ingrid said, “we’ll be expected up on the bridge to hand that over.”

Mercedes stopped walking in front of a lift and pushed the button on it. Ingrid looked Annette up and down as they waited for the lift and a small smile curled up the corners of her lips. 

“You’ve changed a bit since you were just the young woman who was starting her job as Cornelia’s assistant.”

Annette wrinkled her nose at the sound of her old boss’s name. “Oh, yes, well some stuff certainly happened that changed those circumstances.”

Ingrid nodded. “Felix told me most of it.”

Annette looked at Ingrid. She looked different too. There was something more relaxed and less wound-up about the Marine here. On Earth, she had carried herself with a certain stiffness that Annette had grown up associating with her absent father, but here, in space, she seemed a bit more relaxed. 

“You’ve been through a lot too. Felix was so glad when he found out that you guys were alright,” Annette said. 

Ingrid smiled faintly. “And we were glad to know that he had an ally back on Earth, especially after what happened with his father.”

Annette frowned. “Yes,” she murmured. She still hated thinking about the memory of clutching Felix as he broke down after his father was killed. “I was happy to be there for him.”

“He’ll be on the bridge when we get there,” Mercedes chimed in, an innocent smile on her face, but Annette could see the teasing glint in her eyes. 

“Um,” she stuttered, but she didn’t get anything else out before the lift opened and the three women stepped on. 

Ingrid punched in a command and the lift took off. Annette shuffled her feet and resisted the temptation to ask Ingrid or Mercedes about Felix. She knew that Ingrid and he had been childhood friends and Mercedes had been around Felix more than Annette had in the last few days due to their separation during the Martian Assault. 

“How is the situation on Mars?” she asked instead. 

Ingrid sighed. “It’s not all smooth sailing yet, but we were lucky enough to have a few influential members of the old administration join our efforts. They’re working to try and call the Martian Parliament again, but there are still supporters of Edelgard that they have to deal with.”

Annette nodded. She had figured as much from the treaty that she and the Security Council had worked on, the one on her datapad that just needed Prince Dimitri’s approval, but she had wanted to make sure that the situation was really as settled as everyone was saying it was from someone that she trusted. 

The lift opened, letting them out onto a new deck and Mercedes led the way through a set of sliding doors into what appeared to be the main bridge of the Derdriu. Annette’s attention immediately focused on the two figures standing in front of the holo console who appeared to be having a heated discussion: Claude von Riegan of Ceres, and Prince Dimitri himself. 

She let her eyes sweep over the room and she registered Sylvain Gautier, Felix and Ingrid’s friend and the son of Andre Gautier, Dedue, the personal guard for Prince Dimitri, a few other members of the Alliance and Byleth, the woman who Annette had helped with her bullet wound after they took down Cornelia. 

Her gaze lingered on Byleth for a moment, taking in the bright green hair and eyes of the woman. She had been warned about the change, but that didn’t make it any less jarring to see in person. Byleth seemed to notice her gaze as she looked up and smiled at Annette before pointedly clearing her throat in Claude and Dimitri’s direction. 

The Alliance and Earthen leaders immediately both stopped and looked over at Annette. Annette straightened up, stepping forward and holding out the datapad with the treaty on it. 

“Right from the desk of Valen Galatea,” she informed Prince Dimitri. 

The prince stepped around the console, smiling at her and took the datapad in his right hand. His left arm was in a sling and Annette figured that it was probably still recovering from where he’d been shot. She watched as he scrolled through a few notes on the datapad before he tapped something and then handed it back to her. 

“Thank you, Annette,” he said. “You can get that to Captain von Aegir now.”

Annette reclaimed her datapad and clutched it close to her chest. She looked around the bridge again, scanning unintentionally for Felix, and her heart sunk when she didn’t find him. Thankfully, her disappointment was almost immediately relieved when the doors behind her opened and she heard the familiar clicking of Felix’s leg braces. 

She looked back and saw that he was flanked by a man and a woman wearing Martian colours and that his eyes were fixed on her. Annette’s gaze quickly darted to the Martian man and woman and noticed that the man had a name tag that read “von Aegir” paired with a captain’s insignia pinned to his breast pocket. 

“I believe I have something for you,” Annette said, stepping forward and holding the datapad out. 

The man blinked, looking over her to Dimitri, and then he took the datapad with a smile. “Ah, thank you. I’ll send this down to Mars as soon as possible.”

Annette moved to step back, but Felix’s hand darted out, curling around her wrist and then sliding so that he was holding her hand. Annette blinked but didn’t stop the small smile from curling up on her face. She and Felix hadn’t really talked about what had happened between the two of them, but he had kissed her three times since their first rushed kiss and he was voluntarily holding her hand now. Knowing him, she figured this might be as good a conversation as she was going to get out of him. 

“Right,” a different voice said and Annette turned to see that Claude von Riegan was speaking, “well we have a lot of work to do.”

“Yes,” Prince Dimitri agreed. “Everyone should have their final positions and deployment sent to their registered comms shortly. Be on alert as it won’t be long now.”

As soon as the prince finished speaking, Felix tugged on her hand, pulling her out off the bridge and back out into the hallway. She walked with him, letting him lead until they were around a corner. Felix turned to her and Annette leaned up and pulled his lips down to hers. Felix kissed her back, softly and slowly and her pinched toes curled as she smiled into the kiss. 

When he leaned away, she blinked at him. “Hi.”

“I’m going to be on the ground team. I think you’ll be safest up here,” he said. 

She laughed lightly. “Always business, aren’t you?” She poked him in the chest. “Look here, Mister Big and Strong Marine, I’ve had enough of being left behind. I’ll stay here because I know I’ll only slow you down out there, but you’re going to come back to me, alright?”

Felix’s lips twitched into a small smile and he kissed her lightly again. “That can be arranged.”

“Good,” she mumbled into the kiss, her eyes drifting shut. 

After a long moment, she broke the kiss and looked him up and down, noting that he was still wearing the leg braces. “Are you okay to do this?”

Felix nodded. “The power armour is all the support I’ll need and there is no way that I’m sitting this out.”

Annette pressed her lips together. “These are the people who killed your father, aren’t they?”

He nodded again. “They’re not getting away with that.”

She sighed and slid her hand into one of his, squeezing lightly. “Okay. But, you’d better be coming back to me, okay?”

“I will.”

* * *

**SPACESHIP DERDRIU, MARS AO**

It wasn’t hard to find the Martian scientist. She traced where his access had been used and tracked him down to the science station where she knew he had holed himself up for a while as he worked on his serum. She found him sitting at a bench, peering through a microscope and when he didn’t look up right away, she tapped her knuckles on the counter, looking at him expectantly. 

He looked up at her then, raising an eyebrow. “Hello,” he greeted in the same soft voice he always seemed to use. 

Lysithea folded her arms. “Why are you doing this?” she asked. 

“Because I have curiosities regarding your particularly unique scientific and genetic situation,” he answered bluntly. “Edelgard was a different issue entirely as not even the regular gravity sickness meds worked for her, but they do for you.” He waved to the microscope in front of him. “I’ve created a bacteria that should be able to target your afflicted cells and correct the genetic modifications that were bestowed on you.”

“How do you know someone did this to me?”

He shrugged. “It was a guess, at first, but once I looked at the blood sample you gave me, I found artificial particulates embedded in some of your white blood cells, indicating an outside source.”

Lysithea frowned. “Don’t you have anything else to be working on? Anything urgent to the war?”

Linhardt’s lips twitched into a faint smile. “You’re telling me that ensuring the survival of the Alliance’s most brilliant hacker isn’t urgent to the war? The war which, by the way, is already over.”

Lysithea huffed. “You know what I mean. We only just finished breaking through all the security on those files from Thebe. We’re up against a whole other arsenal on Selene. There are entire stations there that aren’t recorded anywhere and we don’t have a single record of what their capabilities are like.”

Linhardt stiffened at that. “Those are the people who made the stealth tech, correct?”

“Yes,” Lysithea continued, “if we had access to some of their tech it might make the whole thing easier to break down and break into, but we’re trying to fly blind here based on your hacker, Bernadetta’s past experiences.”

“Tech like the transmission and launch codes for a bunch of stealth nukes?” Linhardt asked. 

Lysithea stared at him. “What?”

He fished a comm out of his pocket and held it up to her. “Take this,” he suggested. “Edelgard entrusted that to me because she didn’t trust Arundel and his people. There should be a significant sample of their tech and coding on there to help you and your algorithms.”

Lysithea took the comm, staring at it in disbelief. “Is this what you used to break into the palace security to get us onto Mars in the first place?”

He nodded. “Unfortunately for her, Edelgard seemed to have overlooked just how much access she gave me when handing me those.” He looked at his microscope and then back at her. “The treatments that Arundel gave to Edelgard weren’t manufactured on Deimos. That means that they had to have been made on Selene. If you can get me a raw sample of it, I should be able to reverse engineer it and create a serum that can, with this bacteria, remove your gravity sickness.”

Lysithea’s breath hitched. She had been pushing for a development like this her entire adult life, but being presented so clearly with a path to what she knew could be freedom was liberating and terrifying. She tightened her grip on the comm he had given her and stepped back. 

“Thank you,” she said quietly. “For this,” she held up the comm, “and for everything else.” She stepped back again. “I’ll talk to Claude about the sample.”

With that, she turned and left the science station, leaving the Martian to his work. 

She knew better than to send Claude a comm and expect him to reply, so she sent a message to Hilda, asking her if she knew where the Alliance leader was. She replied affirmatively, saying that she and Claude were with Lorenz in one of the conference rooms on the deck below the bridge. 

Lysithea hurried the last few steps to a lift and scanned her comm, inputting her destination. She tapped her foot impatiently on the floor as the lift rose and almost ran out of it as it opened, letting her off a minute later. She hurried down the hall, following Hilda’s directions until she found the conference room. 

She tapped the access panel on the slide and the doors opened, cutting off Claude in the middle of a sentence. He stared at her as she entered, his mouth snapping shut and Lorenz turned and looked, noticing her arrival as well. Lorenz’s brow creased. 

“Lysithea, weren’t you going to rest?” the Callisto governor asked. 

“No time for rest right now,” she said, striding forward. She held out the comm that Linhardt had given her. 

Claude took it from her, looking almost suspiciously between her and the comm. He scanned it up onto the console in the meeting room and then the four of them were staring at a full 3-D rendering of a stealth missile with active blinking coordinates in the corner. 

“What is that?” Hilda asked, sounding completely shocked. 

“It’s a piece of the tech from the people on Selene. Probably the same missile class that took out the Fhirdiad too, if I had to guess,” Lysithea explained. 

Claude furrowed his brows. “Can you use this to try and get a backdoor into their system?”

“I can try,” she said. “But, Claude, I want to be on the ground team when you land on Selene.”

His response was immediate and curt. “No.”

She scowled. “You owe me.”

He shook his head. “Lysithea, I would love nothing more than to let you go down there, but I can already tell from this,” he paused, pointing at the transmission coordinates for the missile which were rapidly scrambling, “is going to be a pain in your ass that will take your full attention.”

Lorenz hummed in agreement. “Even if you set your full attention to it, we will probably be needing your skills to be on top of our defence systems the entire time. Those codes are rotating.”

Lysithea felt frustrated. She knew that Claude and Lorenz were right, but it was still infuriating to know that she was being side-stepped for something that was so important to her health and her life as a whole. She stepped towards Claude, narrowing her eyes. 

“I’ll stay here,” she snapped. 

Claude nodded and held up a hand, crossing it over his chest. “Lysithea, I promise, as soon as we’re done on the surface, you can be on the first craft down to search.”

His promise caught her a bit off guard. She hadn’t expected him to so readily consent to let her come down to the surface, but it was nice to hear. She narrowed her eyes at him again. 

“You had better be on high alert for anything that could help Linhardt,” she said firmly. “Anything that might even be remotely helpful.”

Claude looked a bit curious at that. “You think that he can do it?”

“He says he can,” she replied. “I have no reason not to believe him at this point.” She poked him in the chest. “You’d better not mess this up for me, Claude.”

He laughed. “Don’t worry, Lysithea, I’ll flag anything even remotely useful and we’ll have you down there as soon as we’re not in imminent danger of being shot out of the sky by cloaked stealth missiles that I trust you to track and protect us from.”

Lysithea pressed her lips together, accepting his answer. “Fine,” she said stiffly. She looked at the rotating transmission codes. “I should get started on those.”

Claude nodded. “How soon do you think you can break them?”

She hesitated, staring at the complex codes. It would take her some time, but with some help from Bernadetta, she could probably do it faster than it might normally take her. “A few hours, give or take,” she settled on. 

Claude nodded. “That’s good enough for me.” He stepped out of her way. “Use this room for whatever you need and use Lorenz as your errand boy if you need anything.”

Lorenz scoffed indignantly, but Lysithea ignored him, looking between Claude and Hilda. “And what are you two going to do?”

Claude stepped back towards the door as if he was moving to leave, but he stopped when she called after him. He looked at Hilda and the pink-haired Goneril frowned at his expression, reading into it. Lysithea knew Claude well, but the bond between him and Hilda was stronger than most people gave them credit for. 

“Chart a course for Selene,” Hilda answered. “We’ll send out final plans and start getting into position for our assault plan.”

“And,” Claude added, almost playfully, “we’ll keep the Earthens and Martians in the loop to hopefully avoid another war breaking out while we’re trying to bury the hatchet from the last one.”

* * *

**SPACESHIP DERDRIU, EARTH AO**

“Ashe!” 

Ashe turned, looking back over his shoulder. He blinked as Petra jogged up to him, pulling him into a tight hug. Ashe let his arms drop as he hugged her back until she leaned back, resting her hands on his shoulders as she gave him a stern look. 

“I am not good with the fine parts of space fighting,” she said, “but I will be here waiting for you to get back, yeah?”

Ashe smiled faintly. “You’ll be doing plenty of important things here,” he said. 

Petra patted his cheek. “Maybe. But I cannot be flying an important ship like you. I will be watching your back on the scanners.”

He leaned forward, knocking their foreheads together lightly. “I trust you.”

There was a light cough from behind them and Ashe tensed, almost jerking away from Petra’s touch. Claude von Riegan stood there, dressed in full combat gear, and he looked amusedly between the two of them. Petra didn’t flinch, but she did lower her arms down from Ashe’s shoulders, nodding to Claude. 

“Claude. Can we be helping you?”

“Nope,” he said casually. “Just waiting for the pilot here to give the all-clear.”

Ashe frowned. “You’re coming?” He looked back out around the inside of the Derdriu, lifting a hand. “Shouldn’t you be staying with your ship?”

Claude shrugged. “His Highness is still out of commission with that gunshot wound and I have some curiosities of my own about this place.”

Petra brightened. “This is right!” she exclaimed. “The gravity on Selene is less than Mars and Earth. You, as a Colonist, can be visiting Selene!”

Claude winked at her. “Bingo.” He turned his gaze on Ashe. “Are you suiting up?”

Ashe nodded hastily. “I probably should.” He looked back at Petra one last time and Claude seemed to get the message, breezing past him towards the dropship that they’d be flying to the surface and leaving Petra and Ashe alone for a minute. 

Petra smiled warmly. “Be coming back to me, alright?”

“Watch me all the way back,” Ashe replied. 

Petra closed the gap between them first, lightly pressing her lips to his, before she stepped back and started walking away, leaving the loading bay of the Derdriu. He lifted a hand in farewell before he forced himself to turn and head to the equipment locker off the main hangar to get suited up. 

He headed to one of the lockers on the side and pulled out the protective pieces for his combat gear, strapping on the arm and leg braces as well as the chest plate before he checked all his straps, ensuring that everything was in place. He looked around the room. There were three heavy crates pushed against one wall and Ashe recognized them. They were power armour crates for the UEMC soldiers, but one of them looked older than the others. The open latches on them betrayed that the crates were empty.

“Are you ready?” a voice said, causing Ashe to snap his head to the right. 

Byleth, the woman who normally manned the Seiros by herself, was standing there, arms crossed, looking at him. Ashe straightened, nodding.

“I’m ready,” he confirmed.

Byleth tilted her head and Ashe jogged over to her as they made their way back to the main hangar of the Derdriu where the assault pods would be dropping out of. It wasn’t going to be an easy drop as it was likely that they would be fired on heavily and by cloaked missiles that only the Derdriu with its updated sensors could pick up. 

As they approached the edge of the ship’s hangar, Byleth pointed out the nearest pod. It was small and likely only fit about eight people, but it would do for the purpose of the mission. “That’s the one,” she directed. 

Ashe nodded. “I’ll get set. Who else is on board with us?” 

Byleth counted out on her fingers. “Ingrid, Sylvain, Felix, Raphael, Dedue, Claude, myself, and you.”

Ashe nodded again. “Right,” he confirmed. “I’ll get the pod ready to launch.”

Byleth smiled at him tightly. She looked stressed, but Ashe figured that he didn’t look much better. Even with Hygiea, there hadn’t been this much tension around space combat. He felt like every muscle in his body was primed to snap at any second. He awkwardly nodded to her for a third time before he headed over to the dropship, ducking under the edge and hoisting himself inside. 

“Alright,” he muttered as he found his way to the pilot controls. Byleth would obviously be flying second-point and Claude would probably manage the comms, but there was no way that it was going to be a clean flight. 

Ashe initiated his pre-flight checks and updated his comms sensors, syncing himself as closely as he could to the AN Derdriu just in case of any emergency broadcasts. The dropship was equipped only with a small CQ gun that wouldn’t do much good to detonate missiles, so he was going to have to rely on the Derdriu, the Seiros and the other fleet ships for coverage as he piloted the craft down to the surface. 

By the time he had finished his flight checks, the Marines had arrived, suited up in their power armour, as had Dedue, Raphael, and Claude. Everyone strapped into their positions and Ashe flipped the last switch he could without Byleth on board. After just a second, she bounced up into the ship, quickly sliding into the second-pilot chair at the front of the ship. 

“Everyone get ready for a bumpy ride,” Ashe instructed. He gritted his teeth and sealed the doors with a hiss as the ship pressurized. 

“ _Derdriu to dropship_ ,” a comm buzzed through the ship’s comm system. 

Ashe pushed the receiver. “Comms good,” he confirmed. “Swing around and we’re clear to drop.”

There was an outside rumbling as the Derdriu spun and Ashe took a deep breath before pushing off the short-propulsion thrusters right as the bay doors opened. He jerked the controls towards him and the dropship shot downwards, arcing cleanly out of the Derdriu’s bay. 

“ _Two pings to your right, about four clicks_!” That was Hilda’s voice. 

“ _Got it!_ ” Leonie replied. On the monitor, there was a bright ping of light as the AN Sauin detonated two missiles as they approached the dropship. 

Ashe took a bracing breath and turned left, changing the steep arc of the dropship. “Alright, we’re through the first wall.”

“Take us into Selene’s AO,” Byleth urged. “We have one shot at this.”

“Hold on!” 

Ashe pulled up on the controls and the g-force generated by the sharp motion of the ship caused him to grit his teeth as the ship spun, changing orientation as the thrusters changed their position but not their strength, and began propelling the dropship towards Earth’s moon. 

The initial arc of their shot had slung them back towards the rear side of Selene, away from the commercialized domes and registered research stations towards the hidden station that the plans from Mars had revealed. The correction he had made was now propelling them into Selene’s lower orbit, shooting them rapidly towards the surface. 

There was a crackle over the comms system as the incoming comm was broken up by a transmission scrambler and the sharp movement taken by the dropship and Ashe narrowed his eyes, turning his controls to the right just as Byleth turned hers to the left, completing the turn and angling them straight down towards the surface. 

On his scanners, there were four more bursts of light as the larger Earth, Mars, and Alliance ships took out more of the stealth missiles directed towards them. Ashe coaxed the ship into a deeper dive and risked a glance back at the rest of the passengers on the ship. 

“We’re almost through,” he informed them. His gaze fixed on Claude who was watching a holoprojection. “How are the other pods?”

“On target,” Claude confirmed.

Ashe smiled tightly and turned his attention back to the scanners, taking control back from Byleth. As they shot towards the surface of the moon, the intense g-force made him grimace, but then he almost gasped as he spotted the stations on Selene. It wasn’t that he hadn’t believed they were there, but seeing them in person was jarring. They weren’t astronomical in size, but they certainly weren’t small either. 

“Initiate landing,” Byleth said. 

Ashe nodded, flipping the switch over his head as he pushed down on the controls. Byleth copied him and the ship flipped around into a steep propulsion upwards as their descent slowed. Ashe engaged the full engine, propulsion continuing to slow their descent until Byleth pushed the red and orange buttons to start the final landing sequence and then Ashe pulled the green lever on his left side as the landing gear shot out and the ship’s descent finally slowed to a manageable pace. 

There was a groaning sound from the rattling dropship as it thudded into the landing–far from clean, but not the roughest landing for a ship that had dropped through enemy space at rapid speeds. He hurriedly flipped the switches for the post-landing procedure and basically ripped off his harness. 

When he stood from his seat, calling on the vac portion of his combat gear, the rest of the ground team was already ready, poised over the hatch and ready to drop out onto the surface of Selene. 

“Dimitri,” Byleth said into the ship’s comm. “We’ve landed and we’re a-go.”

“ _Godspeed to you all_ ,” came the prince’s garbled reply. 

Ashe took a deep breath and hit the release for the ship’s hatch. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 28 is where it gets real. Can you believe there are only three parts left? I definitely can't. Thanks to everyone for coming along with me for this wild, crazy ride. A reminder that there's no update next weekend, but, if everything goes as planned, I should be back in December. 
> 
> If you want more updates and possibly more wip snips, follow me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/nicolewrites37)
> 
> thanks guys!


	28. Twenty-Eight - Dark Side

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Selene is the last stand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi guys! thank you so much for your patience and I feel a bit badly for not updating last week, but school has been completely crazy (and still is). In better news, I have FINISHED the first draft of the last two chapters and I'm SO excited. That means that I should be able to update next week and the week after to get this all wrapped up by mid-late December. This fic has been an incredible labour of love for me and I'm so happy to be reaching the end game. 
> 
> This is, officially, the longest chapter yet and for good reason.

Twenty-Eight - Dark Side

* * *

**SELENE**

Felix dropped out first. Ashe pulled the lever to open the hatch and he pushed forward, landing hard on the surface of Earth’s moon. Felix hadn’t been to Selene in years and he certainly had never been on this side of the moon. He, frankly, had no idea how the UEK didn’t know that there were entire military-grade bases hidden here, but that was the least of his worries. 

As soon as he hit the ground, he lifted his arm cannon and opened fire on the soldiers positioned nearby. He took down one soldier before they even returned fire and by that point, Ingrid had landed next to him and between their clean shooting and bulletproof power armour, they took down the squad of waiting soldiers. 

Felix didn’t wait for the rest of the assault team before he jogged forward, moving to check the soldiers. They were all wearing combat armour and vac suits, but Felix kicked one fallen man onto his back and spotted what he had been looking for. The combat armour was, as he had predicted, decorated with the same insignia worn by the paramilitary soldiers hired by Cornelia back on Earth. 

He waited there, scanning around them, for the rest of the group to catch up to him. Sylvain reached him first, Ingrid hot on his heels, and they all stared down at the group of seven soldiers that Ingrid and Felix had felled. 

“They’re the same group that was down on Earth,” Dedue said, his eyes narrowing behind the helmet of his suit. 

“Yes,” Felix agreed. “And we should get inside and finish this before more of them come running.”

Byleth nodded, lifting her weapon. She took the lead and Felix followed quickly after her. He probably should have been the one leading since he was nearly indestructible in his power armour, but there was just something about Byleth that made him trust her to lead. They ran, as a group, towards the nearest entrance that they could see.

About thirty paces from the airlock, Felix saw a shadow overhead. He didn’t have the chance to say anything before there was a loud snarling sound and something slammed into the ground right in front of him. There wasn’t really a good way to describe the thing other than an _abomination_. 

It was a humanoid creature, but its flesh was grey and pulsing with glowing green fragments. Its skull was deformed and its jaws opened in a lateral movement that was simultaneously horrifying and unnatural. Its eyes were bright green and almost glowing. It leaned forward on all fours, snarling at them. 

Ingrid moved first, opening fire at it. The monster snarled and took the bullets without flinching. Felix caught the briefest movement in its legs and he leapt forward. He apparently timed it perfectly as he managed to catch the monster mid-leap towards Byleth and he used the strength of his power armour to spin, redirecting its momentum, as he hurled it to the side. Something in his suit groaned under the weight and strength of the monster, but he still managed to hurl it aside. 

“What the fuck is that?” Claude demanded. He raised his rifle and empty a few rounds into it. 

The monster didn’t flinch, snarling again. Felix grunted and pulled up his cannon display on his arm, switching from regular ammunition to incendiary rounds. This time, when he fired, the rounds exploded against the monster and it screamed, rearing back as fire licked across its skin. Sylvain saw the effectiveness of Felix’s actions and copied him, swapping to explosive rounds. 

Felix strode forward, keeping the pressure on the thing as it howled and backed away from him. It took almost thirty seconds before it finally let out a wailing screech and dropped to the ground, unmoving. Felix stared down at the corpse of the thing he had just killed and swallowed back a wave of nausea. 

Up close, it looked just human enough to tell him that it had probably started as a human. Now that it was dead, the greenish glow that had been emanating from parts of its body dimmed, except for its wide, green eyes. Its blood was a thick, dark green liquid and Felix was more than a little glad that his armour filtered out scents. 

“Is it dead?” Raphael asked, stepping up next to Felix. 

Felix nodded. “Yes.”

“What kind of thing can take that many shots before it goes down?” Sylvain muttered.

“It’s a genetic experiment,” Byleth answered as she stepped up next to Felix, studying the thing more closely. She pointed at the twisted flesh over the neck where there was what appeared to be a white brand. The brand was the same as the emblem on the plans for the stealth tech that had been recovered from Mars.

“Damn,” Claude muttered, crossing his arms. “So whoever made this thing, sicced it on us hoping that it would get the drop on us.”

“Are there more?” Ashe asked. 

Felix stiffened and immediately looked around. The other Earthen dropships were making their way to the surface around them, but there was no sign of more soldiers or mutated monsters. If these were the same people that killed his father and experimented on the Martian Emperor, Felix wouldn’t put it past them to have more than one genetic abomination. 

“Keep your guard up,” he growled. “Those things are strong and I don’t just mean that in the sense that they can take a few hits.” He shifted his arm, clicking the few joints that the monster had put out of place back into the correct position. 

Ingrid nodded. “Right. Let’s get inside and hopefully away from those things if there are more of them.” 

Felix dropped to the back of the group as Byleth and Claude pressed forward towards the doors again and he looked around, keeping his arm cannon ready to fire when necessary. He stood a few feet back from the others when they reached the door, waiting as Ashe hooked up his comm to the door scanner to hack into it. 

Sylvain stood next to him. “You think there are more of them?”

“There are,” Felix assured. “They probably sent one to see how we’d handle it and there will be more on the way.”

Felix couldn’t see Sylvain frown through the helmet of his armour, but he could basically feel it through the tension radiating from his friend’s body. They stood guard at the back of the group as Ashe’s decrypting software went to work and Felix heard the familiar hissing noise of the doors opening right as something shifted in his peripheral vision. 

He spun, opening fire on the monster as it sprung towards him. His shots knocked it away mid-leap and it snarled. Sylvain followed his lead, shooting at it as well, and Felix risked a look over his shoulder. The doors had opened and Byleth, Ashe, Claude, and Ingrid had stepped forward into the base. Raphael and Dedue were standing right in the entrance, weapons raised at the monster that he and Sylvain were fighting off. 

Felix didn’t have many incendiary rounds left and with the way that Sylvain was firing, he wouldn’t either, but he had no idea how many of these things were out there. Felix shifted to his mini-missiles and shot the thing one last time for good measure, blowing it a few feet back with a small explosion. 

“Go!” he roared over his shoulder at the rest of the group. There was another growling noise and Felix turned back in time to catch the third monster as it sprung forward, howling. 

It grappled with him, snarling, and it almost brought him to the ground before Sylvain grabbed it, ripping it off and throwing it back. Felix emptied a full clip of regular ammunition into it and then looked back at the group, trusting Sylvain to watch his back. Ingrid had stepped back towards him and Felix pointed urgently at the base. 

“Go!” he yelled again. “Sylvain and I will handle this. You have to go! Get to the centre of the complex!” 

Ingrid stepped towards him, her eyes blazing. “No! I should stay and help you.”

“No!” Sylvain said. He grunted heavily behind Felix and Felix spun, realizing that the thing had gotten up and thrown itself at Sylvain. Felix grabbed it and bashed his heavy gauntlet into its skull, hauling it off of Sylvain and pushing it back. 

“I can help you,” Ingrid insisted. 

Felix almost wanted her to stay so that the three of them could fight side by side like they had said they would as children, but she needed to go with the group that went inside the station. “No,” he repeated firmly. “Ingrid you’re the only one with the ability to handle one of these things inside so you have to go with them.”

She stiffened, looking angry, but she couldn’t argue with his point. Raphael and Dedue stepped into the airlock and Ingrid stepped back hesitantly. Sylvain kicked the monster back, shooting it in the head a few times. It made a twisted, gurgling noise and Felix knew that it wouldn’t take much longer to put it down. 

“Go, Ingrid,” he said fiercely. “We’ve got this.”

She nodded finally, tapping her right hand against her left shoulder in a respectful motion before she entered the airlock. Felix turned back to the monster and kicked it hard as it tried to crawl towards him. That seemed to be the final touch that it had needed as its growl died out and it stopped moving. 

Sylvain’s hand clapped against his shoulder, armour on armour, and Felix looked at him. Sylvain leaned forward just enough to tap their helmets together. Through the visors of their helmet, Felix could see Sylvain’s grin. Felix took a deep breath. 

“You and me, huh?” Sylvain asked.

Felix pushed Sylvain off, raising his guard back up as he scanned for more of the mutated monsters. “Don’t think too hard about it. I’m getting out of here and I don’t feel like having Ingrid kick my ass if you don’t either.”

Sylvain laughed, lifting his own arm cannon, waiting for the inevitable return of more of the mutated things. “Yeah, yeah. I get it. We’re not making good on that childhood promise yet.”

* * *

**STEALTH BASE, SELENE**

Ingrid felt like smashing her way back through the airlock to get to Sylvain and Felix. It was only Felix’s barked warning about there possibly being more inside that made her choose to explore the inside of the station instead of staying behind with her childhood friends. As soon as the airlock pressurized, the others all deactivated the vac aspects of their combat armour and Ingrid switched back to regular ammunition from incendiary rounds. 

“Let’s go,” Byleth urged. “We have to get to the centre.”

Byleth and Claude stood at the head of the group and Ingrid moved to follow closely behind them. Ashe stood just behind her and then Dedue and Raphael brought up the rear. Byleth took off down the hallway, her boots pounding against the metal floors. 

Ingrid followed her, triggering the heat vision upgrade to her power armour, scanning the area around them as they ran through the halls. As they turned a corner, Ingrid picked up two signatures moving towards them. 

“Incoming!” she shouted, raising her cannon. 

Claude followed her lead and they took out the soldiers moving towards them before they even really got their weapons up. He nodded to her and Byleth dropped to a knee in front of the soldiers, rifling through one of their pockets quickly. She pulled out a comm and wiped it off on the leg of the soldier. 

“Maybe we’ll get access more easily with this,” she suggested. 

Ingrid nodded. It was a good idea. Byleth stood back up and pocketed the comm. She looked around the halls and her expression tightened into a frown. Ingrid was about to ask her what she was thinking when a red light blared overhead, pairing with a loud siren that began echoing through the base. 

Claude sighed. “Guess they know we’re here.”

Distantly, Ingrid’s suit registered the sound of more gunfire: likely another assault team that had breached the inside of the base. “There are others that made it inside,” she informed. She tapped the visor on her helmet. “I’m picking up their frequencies.”

“Are our comms blocked?” Ashe asked. 

Raphael pulled out his comm, tapping something. He frowned. “Yeah, we’re locked out still. Not even close range comms are working.”

“Not surprising,” Dedue said. “They managed to hide the entire base from UEK sensors so I’m sure that they have a few ways to restrict communications.”

“We should keep moving,” Claude suggested. “We have two goals: one, find and stop whoever is leading this whole thing, and two, find the laboratory.” 

“Then let’s move,” Ingrid agreed. 

She stepped around Byleth to take the lead and no one complained. In her power armour, it made the most sense for her to be leading. They kept moving, picking off a few more soldiers before they reached a fork in the hallway. 

“Left,” Claude suggested. 

Ingrid nodded and took the left path, staying on alert. After only a few seconds, her heat sensors picked up something in a room up ahead. Surprisingly, the signature was registering as cold, the opposite of how a normal person would appear.

“Hold up!” she said. She pointed towards the signature. “I’m getting a humanoid signature from here, but it’s weird. It’s registering as cold.”

“Could it be one of those things we saw outside?” Byleth asked. 

Ingrid took a deep breath. “Yeah,” she admitted. “It could be.”

“I, for one,” Claude said, “am in favour of getting the drop on it and taking it out so that it can’t come after us later.”

Ingrid nodded. “I agree.”

Byleth stepped forward, holding out the comm that she had taken. “Ready?”

Ingrid flipped her cannon back to incendiary rounds and nodded. “Ready.”

Byleth scanned the comm on the access port and it beeped affirmingly. The door slid open and Ingrid stepped in, raising her cannon in the direction of the cold signature that she had picked up. To her surprise, the reading was coming from a large, suspended cylinder in the centre of the room. Ingrid kept her arm raised as she carefully approached it, looking around. 

They seemed to be in some kind of laboratory. It looked a bit like the abandoned labs that she and the others had found on Deimos, but this lab was decidedly not abandoned. There were no other signatures that her heat sensors picked up so she slowly lowered her arm, staring at the suspended cylinder. 

It looked like it was made of glass and it was filled with some kind of eerie green liquid that reminded her of the glow emitted by the parts of the creatures that they faced outside. Inside the tube, curled up like a messed up fetus, was one of the creatures, but it somehow looked almost more human than the ones that they had fought outside of the base. 

“Damn,” Raphael said as he followed her in, looking around the room. 

Ingrid stayed in front of the cylinder and Claude stepped up next to her as he studied the thing as it floated, suspended in the liquid. He frowned. “It’s like it’s growing, isn’t it?”

Ingrid finally looked away from the cylinder, looking around at the rest of the group. Ashe, Dedue and Raphael all looked uncomfortable in the lab, but Byleth looked more puzzled than concerned. Claude turned to look at Byleth too and she saw him raise an eyebrow. 

“Byleth?”

“This place,” she muttered, spinning in a slow circle. “It’s like it’s familiar to me.” 

Byleth stepped up to one of the lab computers that had some kind of biometric scanner as the unlocking mechanism next to it. The others slowly moved towards her, but Ingrid kept one eye on the creature, just in case. It stayed unmoving, just bobbing idly in the liquid. 

“Biometrics are hard to hack,” Ashe began, but he cut himself off as Byleth removed her glove and pressed her hand to the scanner. It beeped affirmatively and the computer powered on. 

“What the hell?” Ingrid exclaimed. Byleth didn’t look surprised and neither did Claude. 

Her outburst went ignored as Byleth called up the first files that she could find on the computer. Byleth frowned deeply as she stared at the computer. 

“I was afraid of this,” she admitted. 

“These are the same files you found on the Seiros, aren’t they?” Claude asked. He was looking between the monitor and Byleth, a curious glint in his eyes. 

Byleth nodded slowly. “They are.” She looked around the lab, assessing for something and Ingrid scanned with her, wondering what the mysterious woman was looking for. “This place,” Byleth murmured, “this is the place that they held the Lunars. And it’s like I’ve been here before.”

“ _You have_ ,” a new voice cut in. 

Together, the six of them snapped around, searching for the source of the voice. Ingrid found it first: a monitor above the door that they had entered in. There was a camera blinking next to the screen and on the screen, there was a man smiling at them. There was something unsettling about his expression and Ingrid’s immediate instinct was to shoot the camera, but, as if he could feel her intentions, Claude tapped her arm, keeping her arm cannon down. 

Byleth stepped forward, staring at the man. “I know you,” she said, sounding confused. “I know you and I don’t know why.”

The man scoffed. “ _You know me, Fell Star, because I made you_.” 

“What?” Claude said, stepping up next to Byleth, frowning. “What do you mean you made her?”

The man on the screen smoothed out his expression. “ _I apologize. That’s not entirely true. You were born, as all people are, but you should never have been born._ ”

Byleth’s head whipped around as she took in the room again. “My mother,” she said as if she had just realized something. 

Ingrid turned and looked back at the cylinder in the middle of the room. The thing inside of it had shifted, extending its limbs like some kind of horribly twisted doll. “That’s not good,” she muttered. 

“Who are you?” Byleth demanded, still speaking to the man on the screen. 

“ _I don’t think that should be at the top of your list of priorities right now,_ ” the man replied simply. “ _I hope you’ve been enjoying my pets. They were so much fun to create. I think this one might be especially fascinating to you. And isn’t it your lucky day? You get to see it up close and personal._ ”

The screen flickered off and the glass tube shattered. The monster roared and leapt towards Byleth, hooked hands extended like it was going to grab her. Ingrid cut in between them, lifting her hands in a cross over her chest as she took the impact of the tackling blow from the thing. Her armour screeched as her feet skidded back across the floor and she yelled as she twisted, shoving it to the side. 

It was bigger than the ones that they had faced outside and it looked more deformed with its hands sharpened into what looked like claws. It had more glowing spots on its body and it sounded much less human when it roared. She lifted her arm cannon and blasted it in the face with a full casing of incendiary rounds, but it hardly slowed it down as it wailed and threw itself back at her. 

It was burning hot from the bullets when it collided with her and Ingrid wasn’t entirely prepared for the force that it had placed behind its leap. She was knocked down this time and the thing landed on top of her. Its weight caused the plates of her armour around her legs to creak as they bent and it snarled, leaning over her face. 

Ingrid lifted an arm and bashed it across the side of the head, but it barely recoiled, even as the force of her blow dented its head. She screamed at it as she pounded at it again and again, but it just dug its taloned-hands into her armour and reared back, howling. It tore the front plate clean off of her armour with a horrifying screech. 

Gunfire filled the room as the others opened fire on it and Ingrid finally managed to kick it off, scrambling back. Alerts blinked up around her visor, warning her of severe damage to her armour and Ingrid dismissed them all, cursing under her breath. She scrambled back up to her feet and stared down the thing. Now that the others were shooting at it, Ingrid could see that their weapons were hardly doing any damage. She had clearly damaged it with melee attacks, but she knew that she didn’t have the strength or capability to go toe-to-toe with the thing for longer than a few seconds. It outclassed her. 

“Hey! Ugly!” Claude yelled. 

Ingrid tensed, turning to see that Claude was standing in front of the shattered cylinder, waving his hands at the ugly creature. The monster turned towards him, snarling, and sprung forward. Claude ducked and rolled, dodging behind a lab bench, but the monster had too much force behind its leap to redirect and it slammed into the shattered glass with a wail. 

It staggered away, bleeding profusely, and wailed as it jerked a particularly large shard of glass out of its chest. It wheeled towards Claude who was now without a plan and Ingrid turned, grabbing the nearest beaker off of a bench and hurling it towards the monster. The glass shattered against the back of its head and it spun back to her, snarling. 

She crossed her arms and took a short breath, bracing herself for it to spring at her again. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Byleth move, grabbing something from a lab bench. The monster sprung towards her and Ingrid stepped forward, ready to meet it head-on, when the point of a white blade burst through its chest. 

It howled and thrashed for a moment before the blade withdrew and it crumpled to the ground in front of Ingrid. Ingrid stared at Byleth in shock. The other woman was holding a white sword that was glowing red at the handle. Byleth’s chest heaved with deep breaths as she stared between the sword and the monster that she had just slain.

* * *

**STEALTH BASE, SELENE**

The sword was hot in her hand and Byleth was barely processing what she had just done. Ingrid was staring at her like she was crazy and Byleth felt like she was. She had dived for the lab bench with the blade on pure instinct, like someone else was controlling her, and had found the sword immediately inside the top drawer. 

She had no experience wielding weapons like this, but holding the strange white sword felt completely natural. Of course, then there was the matter of the sword actually _glowing_ and that it hadn’t started to glow until she had picked it up. 

“Byleth?” 

She turned, lowering the point of the blade to the ground, and saw Claude scramble to his feet from where he had dived behind a bench for cover. He was staring at the sword. She smiled sheepishly. 

“I really, really don’t know what’s happening,” she admitted. “I’m not sure what came over me.”

Ingrid crossed her arms. “You know, at this point, that seems like the least of our worries.”

Byleth laughed faintly, turning the sword over in her hand. “It does, doesn’t it?”

She turned around and saw Ashe and Dedue standing under the doorway, looking up at the camera and the monitor where the mysteriously familiar man had spoken to them. Byleth frowned. 

“That man,” Claude said, stepping up beside her, “I think if we find that man, we finish this.”

“I might be able to trace through the system where the broadcast came from,” Ashe said. “If I have access to their system, anyway.”

Byleth looked at the computer that she had unlocked with a bioscan. “I mean, you can try it through this,” she suggested. 

Ashe nodded and hurried over, tapping across the console as he created a backdoor to run a trace through. Instead of waiting right behind him, Byleth walked towards one of the lab benches and began digging through it, looking for anything that might be related to the cure or treatment that Lysithea had asked them to look for. 

“What are you doing?” Raphael asked, scratching the back of his head. 

“Looking for anything that might be useful,” she replied, not looking up. “We were looking for the lab, right?”

“Good point,” Claude agreed. He walked around the bench that she was searching and started combing across the top of the one on the other side. 

Byleth paused, watching him, but when he made no motions to strike up a conversation, she went back to searching the drawers. There wasn’t a lot to find: glassware, some printed complex biological arrays, a blank comm, and a series of measuring tools. 

“I’m in!” Ashe called a few minutes later. 

Byleth hurried back to his side and looked at the monitor that he was working on. He had managed to pull up a schematic of the base that they were in and there was a blinking green dot at one of the rooms just a few rooms away. 

“Is that it?” Ingrid asked. 

“Should be,” Ashe agreed. “I cross-checked their server with the transmission that played, and it came from there.”

Byleth nodded. “Alright.” She looked up, scanning over the faces of the people in the lab with her. A mix of Earthen and Alliance that would have been impossible months ago. “Let’s finish this,” she said firmly. 

Byleth didn’t wait for someone else to take the lead. She tightened her grip on the mysterious sword and headed for the entrance, mentally tracing out the path through the base to the point that Ashe had detected as the location for the transmission. Claude quickly fell into step beside her as they stepped out into the hallway and then it was Raphael, Dedue, Ashe, with Ingrid at the rear in her damaged power armour. 

There was an alarm blaring overhead, bathing them all in red light, but Byleth ignored the siren, pushing on down the hallway. Distantly, they heard gunfire and what must have been the other Earthen, Martian, and Alliance teams pushing forward with their own assaults. It was only a matter of time now before the base fell, but Byleth still had so many questions that she somehow knew only the man from the mysterious transmission could answer. 

Surprisingly, they didn’t run into many more soldiers. They found the bodies of a few scientists slumped against the walls of the corridor, their teeth corroded from some kind of acid that probably came from whatever poison they took to kill themselves. It was unsettling, but the pumping of blood in her ears kept her moving forward, following Ashe’s directions. 

After a few minutes, Byleth was mostly deaf to the blaring alarm and she stopped short when the alarm cut off, the red light disappearing. The others stopped too and everyone reached uncertainly for weapons. 

“That probably isn’t a good sign, is it?” Dedue asked. 

Byleth shook her head. “I doubt it.” She glanced at Ashe, who was following the map he had created on his comm. “How close are we?”

Ashe frowned and then he looked up, pointing at the heavy metal doors thirty feet ahead of them at the end of the hallway. “It’s right there.”

“Shouldn’t there be more people here?” Raphael said. “You know, making their last stand and stuff?”

Claude shook his head. “If everything is going to plan with the rest of the crews who came down, then, no, there shouldn’t be.” He nodded towards the door. “If everything goes to plan, whoever is behind that door is our last obstacle to this entire mess.”

Byleth looked down at the sword she was holding again. The hilt of it was warm in her palm and it was still glowing faintly. “Let’s go,” she said quietly. “This has been going on long enough.”

She strode forward, not waiting for the others to agree with her, until she reached the heavy metal doors. She took a deep, shuddering breath and then looked at the scanner next to the door. Curious, she pressed her palm to the scanner, wondering if it would work for her as the rest of the things here seemed to do. 

There was a flash of light as the scanner read her palm and then a blink of green as it accepted the input and then the heavy doors slid open with a growling hiss. Byleth stepped forward into the room before the doors were even fully open. 

The room was clearly some sort of command centre. Monitors and holodisplays littered the edges of the room, but Byleth’s eyes fixed on the raised podium in the centre of the room. Standing on the opposite side of a spinning holo display of Selene, was the man from the transmission. 

He was wearing a cruel smile as he watched her approach slowly. Byleth heard the footsteps of her companions behind her, but she only had eyes for the man in front of her. 

“Who are you?” she demanded. 

“Welcome back, Fell Star,” he replied instead, intentionally cryptic. 

With the hand not holding the mysterious sword, Byleth drew her pistol, aiming it at the man. She scowled. “Who are you?” she pressed. 

The man smiled. “Such boldness, raising a weapon against someone who holds something you desperately wish to know.”

Byleth pushed down the bubble of curiosity in her chest and flicked the safety off on her gun. “As far as I’m concerned, if I pull this trigger, all of this ends. _All of it_. All the death and pain and suffering that everyone went through because of whoever you people are. I don’t think that’s particularly _bold_ of me.” 

“Wait,” Claude said, stepping up next to her. He touched her elbow lightly, not pushing her weapon down, but warning her nonetheless. “What do you know that she wants anyway?”

“Who she is, for starters,” the man replied. “I know who her parents were and who she is and how she got here. Doesn’t that sound like useful information, Fell Star?”

“My name is Byleth,” she snapped back. She took a slow breath. “And why would you tell me any of that information anyway? You have to see that there’s nowhere for you to go and nothing you can do.”

The man waved a hand and changed the image on the holo. The projection of Selene vanished in its place, a 3-D hologram of a face appeared. This was a face that Byleth had been studying every night since discovering it hidden within the coding on the Seiros. 

“Mom,” she murmured, the muzzle of her gun dropping a half-inch. 

The man smirked. “I know what happened to her. What happened to all of them.”

Byleth let her eyes dart around the room, taking in the elaborate computer systems around them. “I’m sure that information exists elsewhere,” she said, but there was a twisting feeling in her stomach that told her not to be so sure. 

There was a good chance that the man had already destroyed the records, leaving him as the lone beacon for this information. If she questioned him, it might mean that she gained the answer to questions that she had been pursuing since she was a child–questions that she had tried to ignore since her father’s death. 

The sword in her hand hummed, the hilt growing almost uncomfortably warm. Its glow brightened and Byleth saw the man’s eyes drop to it for the briefest second. There was recognition on his face at the sight of the weapon and Byleth desperately wanted answers. She had been chasing these answers her entire life and here they were, just waiting for her to take them. 

“Byleth,” Claude said, snapping her back to the moment. 

She looked at him. His brows were knit and he was looking between her face and the glowing sword in her hand. Byleth looked past him, looking at the others that had accompanied them here. They were all scuffed from the fight they had been through to get this far, but they were all watching her like they were waiting for her to make the decision. 

Byleth lowered her gun. She flicked the safety back on and holstered it at her side. No one else moved. She stepped forward, closing the distance between herself and the man until they were standing on opposite sides of the console. 

“You say you have answers for me,” she said. 

The man’s smile spread. “I do.”

“About the Lunars? About this blade? About this place?”

“Yes.”

Byleth nodded slowly, starting a slow walk around the table. The man didn’t retreat. He knit his hands in front of his body and watched as she approached him until they were almost face to face. Up close, there was something about him that seemed almost inhuman, almost like the ethereal qualities she had seen in the Lunars. 

She took a deep breath. “Whatever questions you think you might be able to answer for me are not worth the blood that has been spilled to get us to this point. If it means I’ll never know the answers to those questions, that is a sacrifice that I am willing to make.”

The man’s eyes widened dramatically, but Byleth didn’t hesitate. She raised the glowing sword and let instinct guide her as she plunged it up to the hilt in the man’s stomach. She released the hilt of the blade as he stumbled back, gasping and clawing at the wound. The red light from the sword seemed to burn at him from the inside until he was slumping back against the side of the podium, his eyes going glassy. 

For a moment, it was silent. 

The only sound that Byleth could hear was the buzzing of blood in her ears. She blinked and then realized that, distantly, it sounded like someone was calling her name. She turned, whatever stun-spell she had placed on herself fading, as Claude’s voice pierced through the fuzziness.

“What did you do?” he asked. It wasn’t an accusatory question, nor did he sound surprised. If anything, it was curious. 

Byleth glanced back at the unmoving body of the mysterious man. She closed her eyes and took a long, slow breath. 

“I finished it,” she answered simply. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And....Climax reached. Thank you guys for coming along on this crazy ride with me. I have two more chapters to tie up some ends (and leave some hanging) and then I'll be able to give my full thoughts on the project. I've loved working on this fic with my entire heart, even if it did drive me a bit crazy at times. Even so, your comments and excitement got me through the rougher patches and it's finally time to start putting a pin on this project. 
> 
> I'm on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/nicolewrites37) if you have questions, want to yell at me, or just see me freak out over stuff. I'm also participating in [Fluffcember](https://twitter.com/nicolewrites37/status/1333981988697513986?s=20) if that's more your cup of tea. 
> 
> anyway, two parts left! thanks for sticking through this wild ride :)


	29. Twenty-Nine - Umbra

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We. Are. Almost. There. 
> 
> Thank you guys so much for coming on this journey with me! Coming to the end of this fic has been a crazy experience for me and I'm so glad that it was well-received. For those of you who know me from the Sylvgrid Server, you've seen my freakouts about this fic, but it means a lot to me and I'm so so glad it's almost done!
> 
> I'm excited to say that, officially, sometime in 2021, I'll be writing a series of side-stories in this universe to fill in past memories, future scenes, and just stuff I couldn't fit in the main fic itself. Also, I'll be sharing some fun stats-monkey stuff I collected from across the fic on Twitter after I post the finale next weekend because that's the kind of stuff I enjoy. I'm also working on getting a CuriousCat up so I can answer some questions about the fic if people have them. Otherwise, if you follow me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/nicolewrites37) feel free to drop me a message or a tweet if you have questions or ask them here in the comments. Anyways, enough rambling, but thank you guys so much for reading!
> 
> Onto the story~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lysithea resets the system. Dorothea says goodbye. Mercedes gets ready to return home.

Twenty-Nine - Umbra

* * *

**CERES STATION, OUTER COLONIES**

Lysithea connected the last two wires and leaned back, frowning. There was only one way to find out if all of her hard work was actually going to lead to anything and that was to turn on the system and see if it worked. Still, she was nervous to check. It was the hardest job she had ever completed and she wasn’t quite sure how else to approach the problem if her current attempt didn’t yield the results that she was looking for. 

Right before she could swipe up on her comm and turn the system back online, there was a knock on the door behind her. She dismissed the command on the comm and looked over her shoulder at the person interrupting her work. 

To her surprise, it was Linhardt, the Martian scientist. He stood just inside the doorway with one hand in the pocket of his coat and the other clutching a thick paper file. Lysithea spun her chair, turning to face him, and folded her arms. 

“Well? What is it?” she demanded. 

“I was hoping to talk to you before I left,” he said. He took another step into the room and then he held out the thick file to her. 

Lysithea narrowed her eyes, but she stood up slowly, reaching for the file. She took it from him and retreated back to her seat, sitting down and flipping it open. The first page in the file was a medical record–her medical record from when she had been a child back when the experiments had first begun. 

They had recovered copies of most of the files from Deimos on Selene when the base had been raided, but a majority of the work that had been ongoing there had been lost with the scientists that had died, including all the details for the strange hybrid project that had spawned the strange bioengineered monsters that the ground team had fought against. 

Lysithea turned past her initial report to a page that was covered in messy handwriting that somehow managed to be elegant and hard to read at the same time. In the week that had passed since the destruction of the station on Selene, Lysithea had grown familiar with Linhardt’s notes. 

She scanned over the notes, frowning. When she reached the bottom of the page, she stopped, looking up at him. “Are you going to make me read your entire consult report or are you going to tell me what I’m looking for?”

Linhardt’s lips twitched into a faintly amused smile. “Second last page,” he suggested, but before she could turn to the page, he pulled something out of her pocket. 

It was a small, stoppered glass vial no bigger than his little finger, but it made Lysithea’s breath catch as she stared at it. She didn’t bother turning to the last page in the report. She closed the file, placed it on the console and rose to her feet, staring in awe.

“Is that what I think it is?”

“Maybe,” Linhardt said. “It’s untested, obviously, but it’s my best effort.”

Lysithea was reaching for it before she could stop herself and Linhardt didn’t stop her from taking it. She held it up towards the light in the room, studying the way that the deep blue liquid in the vial captured the light. She lowered it down and pressed her lips together. 

“Thank you,” she said finally. 

He lifted an eyebrow. “Hm?”

“Thank you,” she repeated. “You didn’t have to do this for me.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” he said. “We don’t even know if it will work.” He frowned. “The last one of these that I made did not have good side effects.”

Lysithea held out the vial to him and he took it back. “How sure are you about this?” she asked. 

He shrugged. “I would say about eighty percent.”

“For a biologist, that’s not bad,” she pointed out. “It’s better than whatever I’ve been putting myself through else wise.”

“For the resident technology expert, you seem rather unconcerned about the potential for failure across that other twenty percent.”

Lysithea inclined her chin, almost daring him to challenge her. “When you’ve been in this position your entire life, you learn to expect that some risks are worth taking.”

Linhardt blinked and then nodded slowly. “I suppose you’re right. Without a few risks, none of us would be standing where we are, would we?”

“No,” Lysithea agreed. “The whole Earth-Mars thing could have played out very differently.”

“The business on Selene could very well have gone undiscovered,” Linhardt added. 

Lysithea, reflexively, turned and looked at the console on the right side of the room where she was running her best and most ruthless decryption software on files and programming recovered from Selene. She had only seen software this good at dodging her decryption in one other place and Byleth had assured her that that had been the work of the AI on her ship which Lysithea had taken to mean that the AI must have originated from Selene, due to the similarities. 

“How are your efforts?” Linhardt asked politely, his curiosity obviously peaked. 

She sighed. “I’m no closer than I was three days ago. The system reroutes itself and restructures every time I get past the first barrier. If I was working directly off of their system, I might have been able to access more by now, but none of the systems on Selene are functional anymore. Someone disabled them.”

“I don’t suppose that you tried having the green-haired woman attempt to unlock everything like she did on Selene?”

Lysithea rolled her eyes. “If that would work, I would have done it. She doesn’t know anything about the actual technology or coding. She just had some kind of backdoor access to the mainframe on Selene, but apparently, that was all through biometrics, which doesn’t exactly translate well to remote access.”

He hummed, considering her words. “What are you expecting to find when you do get through the security?”

“If I get through.”

“When,” he reaffirms. “When you get through, what do you think that you’ll find?”

“More weapons? More stealth tech, maybe a lot more biological reports and assays about those bioengineered things from the surface. Maybe information on Lunars.”

“The people of Selene,” Linhardt mused. “They’re really real, are they?”

Lysithea nodded. “If I hadn’t seen the files from the Seiros I wouldn’t have believed it, but there’s enough there to prove that some of it must be true.”

“And we don’t know what happened to them?”

She shrugged. “No. As far as most people were concerned, they didn’t exist, so it’s your guess against mine.”

He looks around her to the console where she had been working on her other current project. “And that is going to help you with that?”

Lysithea turned her back on Linhardt, walking over to the comm she had placed down. She picked it up, swiping across the screen to wake the comm, and stared at the program she had built. It had been a mess to piece together since she had to splice out all of the code that had related to operations on a spaceship, but after a few almost sleepless nights, she had come up with something that she was almost confident in. 

She tapped the control on the comm that initiated start-up and the holo over the console flickered on. The code scrawled rapidly across the hologram as it read and reconstructed, attempting to put together a personality from the numbers and letters that she had inputted. When it stopped, there was nothing for a moment and Lysithea held her breath. 

Then–

“ _Recalibrating_ ,” a robotic female voice said. 

Lysithea’s jaw dropped. She knew she had been close, but somehow she had expected this attempt to fail too. 

“ _Initializing personality mainframe. Searching memory banks. Error. Detecting large gap in memory bank._ ”

“It works,” she muttered. 

“So it does,” Linhardt agreed. 

“Sothis,” Lysithea said, testing the name that Byleth had given her, “status report.”

“ _Activating Sothis,_ ” the robotic voice said and there was a faint blink across the holo before the voice returned. “ _Wow! I don’t know what happened, but I have the biggest gap in my memory ever! And all of my systems are offline. Do I even have systems anymore?_ ”

Lysithea clapped a hand over her mouth as she laughed, feeling giddy. “Not currently,” she informed the program. “I had to remove you from the Seiros’s code to get you back online, but now that I’ve done that, I can send you back to the ship’s mainframe.”

“ _I_ _was brought back after going offline_?” There was a curious edge to the AI’s voice. “ _I didn’t know that was possible._ ”

“Me neither,” Lysithea admitted. She reached out and punched a command into the console. “Here,” she said, “I’ll upload your code to a new server on the Seiros and it should let you reintegrate into the mainframe.”

“ _O_ _h! Thank you!_ ”

There was another faint beeping noise that confirmed the reupload of Sothis’s code to the mainframe of the Seiros and the AI’s parameters disappeared off of Lysithea’s holo, leaving her alone with Linhardt again. 

“That was very impressive,” he complimented.

She turned to him, putting a hand on her hip. “It’s what I do.”

He nodded. “Like I said, very impressive. Now, I do have a question about lab space on Io.”

She frowned. “What?”

The edge of his lips twitched. “On Io. You didn’t honestly expect me to return to Mars, did you? This,” he paused, holding up the vial again, “will require observation and probably more than one dose to confirm its effectiveness.”

Her lips parted in surprise. “You want to come to Io with me,” she said, feeling a bit caught out. 

He nodded. “Yes.”

“You want to come to Io with me to observe your serum,” she continued, waving a hand at the vial he was holding. 

He blinked at her slowly and the smile spread on his face. “Well, yes, I supposed. But, Miss Ordelia, I will confess I do find you terribly interesting as well.”

Lysithea stared at him. “What?”

“You like cake, don’t you? Come on. Caspar said he would save us some if I managed to get you out of here.” Linhardt turned and walked back towards the door of the room, pocketing the vial. 

Lysithea worked her jaw for a second, her mind reeling rapidly. “Hey! Wait! What do you mean you find me interesting?” She strode after him, shoving her comm into her pocket. “And what’s all this about cake?”

* * *

**SPACESHIP DERDRIU, OUTER COLONIES**

“Thank you, General,” Dorothea said as she ended her transmission. She cut the recording, tapped the button on her console to send the recording, and then she slumped forward, draping her arms dramatically across the console. She let out a long groan. 

Ferdinand laughed and she narrowed her eyes at him. He simply smiled at her and pulled his handheld comm out of his pocket, checking it for messages. Dorothea shifted, cupping her chin in her hands as she watched Ferdinand for a minute. 

He looked back at her. “What?” She raised an eyebrow at him and he lowered his comm. “You were staring,” he said. 

She smiled faintly. “Just looking,” she assured playfully. 

“Looking, huh?”

“Yup. Nothing else,” she continued, batting her eyelashes at him. 

Ferdinand slid his comm into his pocket and crossed his arms. “And if I don’t believe you?”

She gasped in mock outrage. “How dare you? Ferdie, we both know that I’m the one between the two of us who is actually good at lying and telling when people are lying to me, so I’m offended that you would dare challenge me.”

His eyebrow twitched. “I can tell when people are lying,” he argued. 

She giggled. “Right, because you didn’t see anything weird at all about the Earthen behaviour when we were in Victoria.”

Ferdinand opened and closed his mouth, his argument dying. “I didn’t know them,” he sputtered. “I know you.”

“Mmhmm,” she hummed noncommittally. “I still think I could get away with lying to you. It’s not like I haven’t done it in the past.”

He walked around the console and leaned against it next to her, looking down at her. There was a fondness in her gaze that made her feel a little warm and fuzzy inside. She was still getting used to the easy way that Ferdinand showed affection. It was a pretty new experience, but it wasn’t an unpleasant one. 

“If you keep looking at me like that, someone is going to accuse you of favouritism,” she taunted. 

He chuckled and reached out, brushing back a lock of her hair. “I’m sure there isn’t a single person who doesn’t know that I favour you by now, Dorothea.”

Her lips curled into a small smile. She straightened up, leaning a bit closer to him. “Oh really? Then are we all clear for that other incident?”

Ferdinand stopped and raised an eyebrow at her. “Oh no, you’re not getting out of that one so easily.”

Dorothea laughed and snapped her fingers. “Darn! Here I was thinking that we could turn over a new leaf with the new administration.”

The mention of a new government sobers them both. While in the end, they had both chosen to betray Edelgard and Hubert, they had still betrayed their planet. Mars was still officially leaderless and more than a little bit of a mess. Between the destruction of Victoria and Edelgard destroying Deimos and then also evacuating all of the domes of civilians, the whole situation was just one headache after another. 

Dorothea and Ferdinand had been trying to coordinate refugee programs for the last several days and in between those efforts, they were still getting in contact with some of the deep-space Mars probes that hadn’t been fully made aware of the sudden end to the war. And, with whatever time that was spent _not_ doing that, they were trying to reassemble the Martian Parliament to something similar to how it had been before Edelgard’s coup. 

So far, their efforts were only kind of paying off. They had managed to open up a partially constructed area of Romulus to house a bunch of the refugees from Victoria as a temporary solution, but the living situation there was nothing like the quality of living that the Martians were used to. It wasn’t a permanent solution, but it would hold together for the time being. 

Ferdinand had managed to bully most of his father’s old friends back into parliament, but that process kept getting more and more complicated every day as Lysithea of the Alliance along with Bernadetta unravelled more and more of the conspiracy that had taken place with the organization that had been destroyed on Selene. 

There had been six major cabinet members with deep ties to people on Selene, Ferdinand’s father amongst them, and Dorothea had signed the court-martial orders for them to place them under an international arrest so that they couldn’t flee to one of the sympathetic colonies. It felt as if with every piece of information that was decrypted, Dorothea’s headache got worse. 

Plus, that wasn’t even beginning to cover the issue of the former Martian colonies. While Io, Callisto, and Hygiea had all officially been ceded to the Alliance, there were plenty of Martians and Colonists that disagreed with that decision. There had been riots in two of Callisto’s domes which had meant that Dorothea had spent an entire afternoon in a boardroom arguing with Callisto’s former governor and now leader, Lorenz, and the leader of the Alliance, Claude. 

“Dorothea?” 

She snapped her eyes back to Ferdinand and noticed that he was watching her carefully. “What?”

“Are you alright? You look exhausted.”

She slouched in her seat. “I am,” she confessed. “It’s like we haven’t stopped working since the moment we set foot on this ship and we weren’t even part of the group that took back Mars or captured Selene.” She stifled a yawn, covering her mouth with her hand. “These politics are absolutely exhausting. How can you want to do this with the rest of your life?”

Ferdinand shrugged. “I think I just know that Mars needs me and that it’s something I can do to help so I figure that I should do it.”

She frowned. “You shouldn’t be doing this if you don’t want to,” she pointed out. 

He shook his head. “No, don’t misunderstand. I love our planet. I love our people. But, Dorothea, I want to do this. I want to do this because I love our planet. I’m not doing this out of obligation. I’m doing this because I want to see Mars rebuilt how I know we can.”

She laughed, shaking her head. “Oh Ferdie, how noble of you.” 

“I don’t know,” he disagreed. “I think it’s a bit selfish of me too.” He looked away and she watched a faint blush creep up his neck. “I want Mars to be somewhere that you’re proud of too.”

Dorothea rose to her feet and stepped a bit closer to Ferdinand. He lifted his head and their eyes locked. “You want to make the Black Widow proud?”

“I do,” he affirmed. “I want you to be proud of our home and I want you to be proud of me.”

Dorothea’s heart fluttered. He was such an idiot. She was already proud of him. She touched the side of his face gently and leaned forward, intending on closing the distance between them to show him exactly how proud of him she was when there was a loud cough behind them. She turned her head abruptly, aborting the kiss, and looked over her shoulder at who had interrupted them. 

Ingrid and Sylvain both stood at the entrance of the room. Sylvain was the one who had coughed and he was wearing a wide smirk. Dorothea glared at him, narrowing her eyes fiercely and he smoothed out his smirk into a more casual smile. Ingrid looked a bit flustered, obviously realizing that she had interrupted an intimate moment between the two Martians. 

“Hello,” Ferdinand greeted awkwardly, coughing into his fist as he averted his eyes. 

“We didn’t mean to interrupt,” Sylvain said and Dorothea rolled her eyes, stepping away from Ferdinand. 

“You weren’t,” she replied coolly. Neither of the Earthens looks like they believe her, but they didn’t push the issue, so she continued. “Can we help you with anything?”

Ingrid and Sylvain exchanged a glance and then Ingrid stepped forward. “We actually came to say goodbye.”

Dorothea blinked. She knew that everyone would be saying farewell and heading home eventually, but she hadn’t realized that that day would be today. She and Ferdinand weren’t scheduled to return back to Mars for a few more days because it depended on when they could get a shuttle down to Thebe. 

“You’re going back to Earth?” Ferdinand asked. 

Sylvain nodded. “Yeah. We’re not the first group, but we shouldn’t be the last.” He looked down at Ingrid. “There are people waiting for us back there and we do have our part to play in smoothing things out back on Earth.”

Dorothea tilted her head. “You accepted then?”

Sylvain nodded. “Yeah. Our talk helped put everything in perspective.” He nodded to her. “Thank you for the push.”

She smiled. “Of course. Honestly, I mostly did it for my peace of mind. It’s nice to know I’ll be dealing with someone I know when we have to make those tough diplomatic calls between our planets.”

Ingrid laughed. “I guess so. And I hope that we’ll see you guys for those more personal diplomatic missions as well.”

Dorothea folded her arms. “Oh, believe me, you won’t be rid of either of us so quickly.”

Sylvain chuckled. “I should hope not. You’ve done good work so far.” His gaze slid to Ferdinand. “Good luck in the election. We’ll be rooting for you in a totally non-biased sort of way.”

Ferdinand nodded. “Thank you. Your confidence is appreciated.”

Dorothea stepped forward, walking across the room to Ingrid and pulled the Earthen into a hug. Ingrid tensed against her and Dorothea just laughed. She released the Earthen Marine and turned to Sylvain. Sylvain actually met her in a hug and she leaned up on her tiptoes to whisper in his ear. 

“Don’t mess it up,” she whispered. 

“Same to you,” he hissed back. There was no malice in words, just a gentle, reciprocated teasing. 

Dorothea pulled back and smiled at the two Earthens before she looked over her shoulder at Ferdinand. “Oh, I won’t.”

* * *

**NEW YORK CITY, EARTH**

“Mercedes!”

Mercedes turned, tightening her grip on her purse strap. She spotted the young woman calling her name easily enough and she waved back. Annette beamed and hurried over to her, almost tripping over her own feet as she approached.

“Hello Annette,” Mercedes greeted warmly, reaching out a hand to steady Annette’s bouncing shoulder. 

“Hi! I’m so glad I managed to catch you before you left! I was worried I wouldn’t.”

Mercedes shrugged. “I’m not in a hurry. When you mentioned that you wanted to have coffee, I was happy to shift my ticket time.”

“Oh!” Annette exclaimed. “I didn’t mean to completely shift all your plans.”

Mercedes shook her head, laughing lightly. “Don’t worry, there were other things that I had to take care of as well. Besides, I’m allowed to want to see off a friend, aren’t I?”

Annette’s smile returned in full-force, brightening up her face. “Yeah! Now, I believe we said we were going for coffee, didn’t we? Come on. The place in HQ isn’t the best, but it will certainly do in a pinch.”

Annette linked their arms together and led Mercedes towards the main building of the UEK Headquarters. Mercedes smiled and tilted her head up, admiring the blue sky above her as they walked along. Annette noticed her gaze and started humming idly. 

“I’ve never seen so much blue in my whole life,” Mercedes confessed quietly. “I find myself quite amazed by it every time that I look up here.”

Annette giggled. “It’s certainly different from space, that’s for sure!” She gasped suddenly. “I just realized that I’ve never been to any of the Colonies! The closest I got was the Derdriu and that was just the Alliance ship.”

Mercedes patted her arm. “Well, maybe you’ll have to come to visit me on Pallas then.”

“Could I?”

“Sure,” Mercedes promised. “Just as long as I can come back here to visit you as well.” She smiled a little wider. “There’s something quite special about Earth.”

Annette hummed in agreement. “There really is, but wow, I will say, it’s nice to be here without constantly having to be looking over my shoulder to see who is watching me.”

Mercedes nodded. “I imagine. You know, you and Felix did an awful lot for this place when we were all up there.”

Annette smiled. “Maybe, but it would have all been for nothing if everyone hadn’t come back in the end. We were two people. You guys were the cavalry.”

“Still,” Mercedes continued, “there would be no way to bring in the cavalry if you hadn’t opened up the doors.”

They entered the main part of the building before Annette replied, and she seemed to choose not to as she slowed to a stop, pausing to stare at the centre of the main atrium of the building. Mercedes had heard the story from a few people about how the last sitting Admiral, Felix’s father, had been assassinated, and she knew that it had taken place in this building. 

“Are you alright?” she asked Annette. 

Annette took a deep breath and nodded. “Yes. It’s funny how much has changed in these last few months. When I started here, I was nervous to walk in here for completely different reasons! Now, I have all of these crazy memories and stories to send home to my mom.” She turned to Mercedes, smiling a bit wider. “You know, she didn’t believe that I’d been right in the middle of all of this until I sent her a transmission from space. What kind of mother doesn’t believe her daughter until she gets a message from space?”

Mercedes giggled and nudged Annette towards the coffee shop to their left. “The kind who knows her daughter is more of an Earth-dweller, I guess. My mother could scarcely believe it when I told her that I’d been to Earth, much less that I was the primary medic for Prince Dimitri after he was shot on Mars.”

Annette laughed and they continued into the coffee shop, joining the queue for the drinks. Annette smiled almost wistfully. “You know, the first time I came here, it was with Ingrid. We were getting our drinks when,” she pointed to a display at the handoff plane, “we saw the news about the UEN Fhirdiad on that monitor. It feels like such a long time ago.”

“Ingrid is coming back to Earth later today, right?”

“Yes. She and Sylvain were making the rounds on the Derdriu to say goodbye before they came down. Felix talked to them this morning,” Annette explained. 

Mercedes sighed. “I’ll be sad to miss them, but I probably shouldn’t keep asking for the transport to wait for me. It’s already been an extra two days.”

“Two? I thought it was just one.” Annette said curiously. 

Mercedes pressed her lips together. She had bought herself as much time on Earth as she found reasonable, but there was a job and there were people waiting for her back on Pallas. She couldn’t exactly avoid that responsibility forever. She had used the Earthen Prince as an excuse for her absence, but the guilt had needled at her until she had finally reserved transport back to Pallas. 

Ashe had offered to make a trip with her, but Mercedes had told him not to. He wasn’t even in New York. He had gone home to Ireland to see his family now that everything was over. He hadn’t seen them since before the Fhridiad took off and he needed to spend time with them. Plus, Mercedes knew he was planning a trip to Hygiea in the not-so-distant future to spend time with Petra as well. 

“I got caught up in saying goodbye to people,” Mercedes admitted. “Between you and Felix and Dimitri and Dedue, there were an awful lot of people to talk to and things that I had to experience before I left Earth,” she explained. “I think it was a good use of my time, but I can’t really put off my departure for anything else.”

Annette’s gaze slid past her and her lips rounded into an ‘o’-shape suddenly. She grinned warmly at Mercedes and Mercedes frowned, starting to turn. Annette grabbed her arm, preventing her from turning around. 

“I think that you might not be done with saying your goodbyes quite yet,” Annette said brightly. “I’ll leave you two to it.”

Annette was darting away before Mercedes had even fully processed her words and she turned slowly to look for whoever Annette had seen. He wasn’t hard to spot with the way that he towered over everyone else and Mercedes’s heart flipped in her chest. She and Dedue had already said their goodbyes, so she wasn’t quite sure what he was doing here. 

She stepped out of the cafe line and hurried towards him, clasping her hands in front of her. “Dedue!” she exclaimed. “I wasn’t expecting to see you.” She almost said ‘again’ at the end of the sentence, but the word felt sour in her mouth, so she bit it back. 

He smiled at her half-heartedly and Mercedes tipped her head, studying him. His body language was nervous overall and he looked like he had swallowed something sour. She frowned. 

“Is everything alright?”

“Yes,” he assured quickly. “I just wanted to catch you before you left. Felix told me that you would be with Annette.” He looked over her head towards where Annette had disappeared. “I did not mean to interrupt anything between you two.”

Mercedes shook her head. “No, don’t worry. She was quite clear in noting that you weren’t interrupting. Now, was there something you needed?”

Dedue opened his mouth to say something, but he closed it just as quickly, apparently thinking better of it. He visibly struggled for another moment before he gathered his wits. “Would you walk with me for a moment?”

“Of course,” Mercedes said. 

They walked side-by-side across the atrium of the HQ and back outside towards the loading bay where there were several shuttles loading and unloading. Dedue led her along the side of the building, towards the northern wall that was almost right overtop of the coastline to protect the compound from the tidal changes of the ocean. 

When they reached a part of the compound that was relatively unoccupied, Dedue slowed to a stop and he pulled a datapad out of the interior pocket of his jacket. He tapped something on it and then he offered it to Mercedes. She looked at him curiously before she accepted the datapad, looking at the report that he had pulled up.

She read it and then read it again, almost not believing what she was seeing. “Dedue,” she said, her voice almost breathy. “Are these?”

“Transfer papers,” he confessed. “My transfer papers.”

She lowered the datapad and looked at him. “To Pallas. But, you’re Dimitri’s personal guard. How can you put in a request to transfer to Pallas?”

Dedue smiled almost sheepishly. “I suppose that when I told him that I wanted to go to Pallas, he was inclined to agree to the transfer.”

She was completely shocked. “Why do you want to go to Pallas?” She looked around them. “If you could stay here, why would you want to go to Pallas?”

“Because, Mercedes,” he began gently, touching her arm lightly, “I have a rather good reason to go there.”

Now she was the one speechless. “Me?”

Dedue nodded slowly. “I fear I may have overstepped,” he confessed suddenly, dropping his hand from her arm. 

Mercedes dropped her purse and the datapad to the concrete ground as she reached out, looping her arms around his neck and pulling him down so that she could kiss him. She kissed him firmly, hoping that he could feel her giddiness through the action. It took him a moment to reciprocate, but he did and one of his large hands landed on the small of her back as he pulled her closer to him. 

They broke apart after a moment and Mercedes touched his face, beaming. 

“You’re not overstepping,” she promised. “I would be honoured if you came to Pallas with me.”

Dedue smiled. “I am glad.”


	30. Thirty - New Dawn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The End.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys so much for coming along on this wild ride with me. Here's to the end. More thoughts in the endnotes xoxo

Thirty - New Dawn

* * *

**CERES STATION, ALLIANCE OF OUTER COLONIES**

Claude stared at Lorenz in disbelief. “Are you asking me for permission to date one of my soldiers?” Lorenz shifted uncomfortably and Claude burst out laughing. “God, Lorenz, I’m not Leonie’s dad! If you want something to happen between you two, then you have to put the work in there.” He patted Lorenz on the shoulder. “And, yeah, good luck with that one.”

Claude didn’t wait to hear the Callisto Governor’s response as he turned and walked away, tucking his hands into the pockets of his pants. Ironically, he was wearing something remarkably similar to what he had worn months ago at Lorenz’s father’s funeral, though now the reason for his attire was much less sombre. 

They had just concluded a very important Roundtable Discussion that had solidified the five colony nations that were uniting officially under the banner of the Alliance of Outer Colonies. They had the official documentation from both Earth and Mars that ceded the territories and all the governors had agreed to sign on as leaders of their respective colonies, with the exception of Hygiea. Petra’s grandfather would continue to lead Hygiea from Hygiea, but Petra would be the colony’s representative at the Roundtable. 

Lorenz was representing Callisto, Evangeline Ordelia was representing Io, Holst Goneril was representing Ganymede, and Claude was sitting for Ceres and Pallas. Together, there was a group of five people finally able to start having the discussion that they needed to be having. There was a lot of red tape following the conclusion of the Earth-Mars war and the power struggle that emerged on Mars following everything, but now, after a few months, things were settling down and Earth, Mars, and the Alliance had been able to have the necessary discussions. 

Claude hummed to himself as he strode through the station, heading to the lift that would take him back to his apartment. 

“Claude!”

He stopped in his tracks, spinning on his toe neatly, already smiling at the woman approaching him. Petra jogged down the hall towards him and her long, braided hair swung behind her. She was followed by Ashe, the Earthen pilot who had left the Earthen Navy shortly after the war had ended. 

“Hello Petra, Ashe,” Claude greeted politely. 

Petra smiled. “I was hoping to be asking you about one of the proposals you made.”

Claude raised an eyebrow. “And it wasn’t a conversation for the actual meeting?”

Petra shook her head. “As much as I am liking Lorenz, I am not wanting to argue with him about neutral fly zones for another three hours.”

Claude laughed. “Yeah, alright, that’s fair.” 

Petra pulled her comm out of her pocket and brought up a mini holo of one of the proposed neutral zones that would connect the Inner Planets to the neutral stations on Titan and Enceladus. She tapped out an area that looped around Eros, the abandoned Earth Colony. 

“You are giving Earth and Mars flight clearance through Eros’s space. The last time that Earth and Mars have been meeting on Eros, there was a massacre, no?”

Claude nodded. “That’s true, but this is a demilitarized zone. There shouldn’t be much exchange between them here. It’s not like they’ll be landing on Eros,” he pointed out.

“No,” Petra agreed, “but maybe if you change this-” She stopped, turning the hologram to another gap site in the asteroid belt. “-And you are allowing them their neutral space channel here, then you avoid potentially bringing up those bad memories in the first place, yes?”

Claude considered it. “You know, that does make a lot of sense.” He nodded to the display. “If you forward me that, I’ll have it sent to Earth and Mars for the needed approvals.”

She nodded and then stopped. “You are not needing the approval of the others?”

Claude grinned. “As far as I’m concerned, this is a matter for the Belt Colonies which include Hygiea, Pallas, and Ceres. I sit at the Roundtable on behalf of Ceres and Pallas and you sit for Hygiea, so there shouldn’t be an issue.”

Petra studied him for a moment. “You are strange, Claude von Riegan, but that does not mean you are a bad leader.”

He winked. “I rather hope it means the opposite.”

His gaze drifted past Petra briefly to where Ashe stood, looking a little awkward. Ashe straightened up when Claude looked at him, his hand tapping against his leg. “Hello Claude,” he greeted. 

“How have you two been?” Claude asked, glancing between them. 

Ashe smiled, glancing at Petra. “We’ve been good.”

“How’s the adjustment to our colony life going for you, Earthen?”

Ashe shrugged. “I did a few tours out here before,” he pointed out. 

Claude shook his head. “There’s being out here in uniform and then there’s being out here,” he countered. “How does it feel?”

Ashe paused, considering the point. He looked at Petra again and it was as if he couldn’t help the smile that crept onto his face. “It feels good,” he said finally. 

Claude nodded. He looked between the two of them again and heard his own comm chime in his pocket. He pulled it out and grinned at them again. “Not that it isn’t lovely to see the both of you, but I should take this so that Hilda doesn’t come after me with a bounty.”

Petra smiled at him one last time before she pocketed her own comm and then took Ashe’s arm, pulling him back down the hallway. Claude turned away as they walked, checking the comm that Hilda had sent him. She apparently just wanted to know where he was. He replied quickly, telling her that he was headed back to his apartment. 

Since he sent the message, he figured he shouldn’t take too long getting back or else Hilda might beat him there and start going through his shit because she was bored. It wouldn’t be the first time it had happened. He headed for the lift to the upper level of the station and scanned his ID chip to confirm his access. 

As the lift rose, he held out his comm to record a new message. 

“Judith, how is it going over there? You said you’d check in tomorrow, but I’ll be in transit for almost the whole day so I might dodge your comm. If you need something urgent, talk to Lysithea, or Leonie if you can’t get Lysithea.” He paused, thinking through what else he needed to say. “Tell Nader that knowing my mother doesn’t give him shit superiority-wise and that he still has to report to you. Don’t let the people of Europa get to you too quickly. They can tend to do that. And, if you see him, tell my father that I’ll be back in a few months.”

He sent the message and dropped his comm back in his pocket. He leaned against the wall of the lift, resting his head back against the cool metal, and frowned. When Judith had first proposed going to Europa, he had been dead set against it. He had needed her on Ceres to take care of things on this end but after the war between Earth and Mars ended, the pros of her argument had outweighed the cons. 

Claude himself hadn’t been back to Europa in a few years. He had left the isolationist community as a young teenager to live with his mother on Ceres, where she had been governor, and then he had gotten tied up in her work and his own dreams to see a free and united Alliance. It wasn’t the time yet to bring the rest of the system in on Europa’s hidden kingdom and its secrets, but Claude was hoping that it wouldn’t be long before that was something he could do. 

The lift doors opened and Claude immediately found himself face-to-face with Hilda. She had her hand on her hip and gave him a once-over as he stepped out of the elevator. She fell into step beside him as they walked towards his apartment. 

“Did you get in contact with Judith?” she asked, practically reading his mind. 

Claude hummed. “Kind of. I sent her a comm, but it’ll take a while with the blockers that Europa has for it to get through. Nader should be able to authorize it pretty quickly though. Probably not before we leave tomorrow though.”

“Right,” Hilda said. 

They stopped outside Claude’s apartment and he scanned his comm on the door, unlocking it. The door slid open and he led Hilda inside. She immediately made her way into his kitchen, opening the cupboard above the sink and pulling out one of his more expensive Earthen Scotch bottles that had been a gift from Dimitri a few months back. 

He laughed. “Well, I invite you in and you’re just going to drink my booze? Ouch.”

Hilda stuck her tongue out and pulled two glasses out of his cupboard, pouring them both a drink. She handed one to him across the counter and he accepted it, tapping it against hers lightly. They both drank and then they stood in silence for a moment. Claude lowered his glass and looked at Hilda. 

“You’re sure you don’t want to come with me?”

She scoffed. “And try out some crazy serum shit that might end up killing me? No way.”

Claude spun his glass on the counter on its rim. “It’s going to be fine, Hilda. Linhardt managed to completely cure Lysithea’s gravity sickness. I’m sure the natural kind is a lot easier to deal with than the genetically modified type. Besides, the stuff we recovered from Selene ended up doing most of the work for him.”

She sipped from her glass and studied him. “You know, before all of this, I would have thought you would rather nuke Earth than take an experimental serum and set foot on the planet.”

Claude shrugged. “I guess things change, don’t they?” He tipped his head towards the window in his apartment and walked towards it. Hilda trailed behind him until they both stood by it, looking out over the atrium of the central part of Ceres station with its artificial greenery and fluorescent lights. “Never would have thought I’d actually live to see the day this place became the centre for the Alliance either, I’d bet,” he said, nudging her. 

She laughed. “I had my doubts. But,” she paused, looking at him, “I always believed in you. I hope you know that.”

Claude’s lips twitched. “I know,” he assured. “I wouldn’t be here without your support, Hilda. I wouldn’t be here without any of them, but especially you.”

“Stop it,” she snapped, elbowing him. “Now you’re being weird.” 

He laughed and took another drink from his glass. “Nah, just sentimental.”

“Well, Mr. Sentimental, but correct me if I’m wrong in saying this, but I don’t think you’ll be back to Ceres for a while, will you?”

He stared into his glass, considering his answer. “How’d you know?” he asked.

She rolled her eyes. “I’ve always been able to tell when you were lying to me. Besides, you rushed everyone here for an earlier Roundtable and you have Evangeline set up to moderate the next one with Judith in your place.” She put the hand not holding her glass on her hip and tilted her head, daring him to challenge her. “I’m not wrong, am I?”

Claude drained his glass. “No,” he agreed. “You’re not.”

He looked back out the window and Hilda huffed. “Hello? Claude? Are you going to actually give me anything to work with?”

“Nah,” he said casually. “Besides, I’m not entirely sure where I’ll be heading anyway. That part isn’t up to me.”

“Will you at least tell me what you’re doing?”

“We’re going looking for them,” he answered. “Because, if anyone is going to find them, it’ll be her.”

* * *

**NEW YORK CITY, EARTH**

If there was one thing that Dimitri’s time in space had done for him, it was increase his distaste for formalwear. He had never liked it in the first place, but having had the excuse to wear casual or industrial clothes while in space, there was something particularly restricting about wearing formalwear now. 

He studied his reflection in the large mirror. His jacket was white and piped in blue and green to represent Earth’s colours and his slacks were black to present a neutral tone to the outfit as a whole. His hair was pulled back out of his face, something that his stylist had absolutely insisted on. Apparently, it made him look more dignified. 

He was still staring at his reflection when he heard the knock on his door and he turned quickly, shoulders tensing. “Yes?”

He expected it to be just another guard, but when the door opened, Dimitri was met with a familiar face. He broke out into a smile at the sight of his old friend and hurriedly crossed the room to meet him halfway. 

Dedue hesitated like he was going to default to a formal greeting, and Dimitri didn’t let him have the opportunity, pulling his old friend into a hug. Dedue chuckled, but he patted Dimitri on the back and returned the hug. 

When they broke apart, Dimitri straightened his jacket and studied his friend. Dedue was wearing a formal military uniform with his medals clipped to the right side. While Dimitri had used to know Dedue as a rather serious man, something about him was lighter now. His time on Pallas had clearly done him some good. 

“I wasn’t expecting to see you until later, Dedue,” Dimitri said, patting his friend on the shoulder. 

Dedue nodded slowly. “We got in earlier than I thought and Ingrid directed me up here. Said you might need the company.”

Dimitri was puzzled. “Company? I’m just waiting. And, besides, shouldn’t you be with Mercedes?”

Dedue shook his head. “I think it’s more about the fact that you might go stir crazy. And Mercedes was more than happy to catch up with Annette and the others while I paid you a visit.”

Dimitri chuckled lightly. “Ah, come on. There’s not even a wall up here for me to contemplate falling off of. Where would I go?”

“Perhaps I just wanted to wish you the best in-person then,” Dedue continued. 

Dimitri’s smile softened and he tightened his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Thank you. I would not be here without you, my friend.”

“There are a lot of people who were involved in making sure that you survived the UEN Fhirdiad as well as that the war ended as peacefully as possible. Most of those people are here to pay their respects today.”

Dimitri nodded. “Yes, I suppose they are. I do wish there was a way to avoid all the pageantry, but I guess what must be done, must be done.”

“Avoid the celebrations? Where’s the fun in that?” a new voice cut it, overly jovial in a way that only Sylvain could be. 

Dimitri dropped his hand from Dedue’s shoulder and looked past his friend to the entrance to his chambers where there were more people standing. Sylvain was dressed in an expensive, custom-tailored suit, and he was grinning widely. Just behind him stood Ingrid and Felix, both in their dress uniforms, plus Annette and Mercedes who were wearing dresses. 

“Hello, Your Highness,” Annette greeted warmly. “We don’t mean to intrude.”

Dimitri shook his head. “This is not an intrusion at all. I am always happy to see any of you.”

Felix scoffed. “Sentimental right to the last, aren’t you?”

Ingrid elbowed him. “I think he’s allowed to be. We’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time. I’m surprised it has taken as long as it has for it to happen.”

Sylvain chuckled, draping an arm over his girlfriend’s shoulders. “The Security Council has been more work than it’s worth in convincing them to finally decide on a date for this thing. You should have just done it when you took back Earth in the first place.”

Dimitri’s lips twitched at Sylvain’s callousness. At least that hadn’t changed. “What are you all doing here?” he asked, looking between his friends’ faces. “The ceremony is due to start shortly, isn’t it?”

Annette nodded. “I think we were all here to just wish you luck! Like we said, we’ve been waiting for this for long enough, Your Highness.”

Dimitri sighed. “I still wish you all would stop calling me that.”

Sylvain checked his watch. “Well, in about an hour, we will!” he exclaimed brightly. “At that point, we’ll have to be calling you ‘Your Majesty’, won’t we?”

Dimitri glared at Sylvain. “You know that is not what I had meant.”

Sylvain winked and Ingrid shrugged his arm off of her shoulders, straightening her jacket. “Just ignore him. We’ll keep him in line for the ceremony.”

Sylvain laughed. “Oh, come on. Surely I’m capable of doing that myself?”

“Speaking of the ceremony,” Mercedes said, checking her comm. “We should probably get down to the reception hall. You should as well, Your Highness.”

Dimitri nodded. “Yes, that would probably be wise, wouldn’t it?” 

Dedue patted his shoulder. “Come on. We can all head down together before the official transports.”

Dimitri looked back over his shoulder, peering at the large window on the far side of his chamber. It was a beautiful, clear day outside and there should be no issues with any last-minute arrivals landing safely. He could only hope that she would make it on time. 

“Let us go then,” Dimitri agreed. 

He led the way out of his room, his friends filling in the ranks around him. Ingrid, almost begrudgingly, let Sylvain hold her hand, to everyone’s amusement and Annette was far less reserved with holding Felix’s hand. Dimitri was still getting used to the way that his stubborn friend acted around his partner, but he seemed comfortable enough with letting her swing their hands together as they walked. Mercedes, elegant as always, slid her hand into Dedue’s arm as they walked. 

When they reached the main floor of the Royal Apartments, Dimitri was left alone as his friends trickled off to get onto the public tram that would take them to the reception hall while he waited for the private one which would carry him. Felix, the last to leave, paused and Dimitri blinked at him. 

Felix looked Dimitri up and down. “Our fathers would be proud of you,” he said gruffly. “This was what they knew you were capable of.”

Felix turned to march away and Dimitri called after him. “Felix!” Felix stopped and Dimitri continued, “Your father would be proud of you too.”

Felix didn’t turn back to face him, nodding. “I know,” he replied simply. 

And then Dimitri was alone, waiting for the transport that would lead him to the reception hall for the ceremony that he had been born to perform. It wasn’t a long wait, and nor was he completely alone thanks to the King’s Guard that made up his security detail, but it felt like it took ages for the tram to arrive and for him to board it. 

The windows were tinted as it rolled through the UEK complex in New York, carrying him to the reception hall where he would officially be crowned as the King of the United Earth Kingdom. He pressed his palms to the tops of his legs and breathed slowly, his heart racing as the tram rolled onwards. He closed his eyes. 

“Father, Step-mother, Rodrigue, Glenn,” he murmured. “I hope you are proud of me.” He exhaled deeply. “And, El, I hope I have started to build a world that you would have been proud of as well.”

His thoughts were cut off then as the tram came to a stop and the door slid open. Immediately, Dimitri’s ears were assaulted with the sounds of cheering crowds as he emerged from the tram. All around him, barricades held back celebrating New Yorkers and all of the people who had come to witness the coronation. 

He let a small smile grace his face and he waved politely to the crowd as he moved down the pathway to the reception hall where everyone would be waiting. Inside the building, there was no one in the entrance hall as everyone had already taken their seats and were simply waiting for him for the ceremony to proceed. 

Dimitri took his place at the heavy doors at the entrance and squared his shoulders, bracing himself. 

After a moment, the doors opened and he stepped inside. The room was designed like an old cathedral and the pews were packed. Immediately, a drone with a camera hovered about five feet in front of him, capturing his image for the live feeds that would play across Earth and the rest of the system. 

Dimitri strode forward, keeping his chin up, and walked forward. He tried to keep his eyes from straying, but he found himself looking for familiar faces anyway. His friends were all there, plus the prominent members of the Security Council. Dorothea and Ferdinand had come to visit from Mars, fresh from their election victory. It was Claude that surprised Dimitri. He knew that Linhardt, the Martian, had been working on a serum that would let Colonists withstand Earth’s Gravity, but he hadn’t realized it had been put to work already. 

Dimitri kept walking until he reached the end of the aisle, refusing to let his eyes linger on familiar faces. A priest stood there, waiting for him, and Dimitri nodded respectfully to the man. The priest held out an ancient, ceremonial sword and Dimitri took it carefully. 

He sank to one knee at the dais and held the sword’s handle in his right hand, cupping the flat of the blade with his left hand and letting it rest over his raised right knee. He lowered his head and waited for the priest to begin the oath part of the ceremony. 

“Your Highness, Prince Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd of the United Earth Kingdom, is it your will to stand as king of this proud nation?”

“It is,” Dimitri replied firmly. 

“Then you will answer these claims in the eyes of all those that have come here to bear witness.”

“I will.”

“Do you solemnly promise and swear to govern the People of this planet with dignity and respect and to uphold any and all laws and customs to the best of your ability?”

“I do,” Dimitri affirmed.

“Will you, using the powers bestowed upon you as your birthright, pledge to protect and work with the elected United Earth Kingdom Security Council to move this nation into an era of peace and prosperity?”

“I will.”

“Will you promise to protect this nation’s people, and their interests, in the eyes of all religion and the guiding light of those who have come before you?”

His heart thudded in his chest. “I will.”

“Will you, to the utmost of your power and abilities, maintain your position as the head of state and fulfill your duties as the negotiator and the leader in this world’s political system? Will you work peaceably and tirelessly to uphold this peace we have created? Will you strive to take action to protect this peace through any means necessary and to lead this planet into our new future?”

“To all of this, I swear I will.”

The priest shifted in front of him, resting a hand against Dimitri’s shoulder lightly. Dimitri adjusted his grip on the ceremonial sword, offering it up to the man in front of him. The weapon was swiftly removed from his hands and placed to the side. 

“On this blade and your honour as a member of the Earthen Royal Family, you have sworn these vows.”

“I have and I promise to uphold these oaths for as long as I perform and keep as the leader of this nation,” Dimitri recited. “For this, I do swear upon the sword and the crown of my father before me.”

There was a rustling noise and Dimitri knew what came next. “You knelt before the world today as His Highness, Prince Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd of the United Earth Kingdom. Rise now, bearing the crown you have sworn to protect and serve, as King Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd.”

A weight nestled against his head and Dimitri lifted his head, careful not to displace the crown. He stood slowly and turned to face his people. The crown’s weight was heavy, but Dimitri, for once in his life, felt like this was the moment that he had always been waiting for. 

“Long live the king!”

* * *

**SPACESHIP SEIROS, SOMEWHERE IN OPEN SPACE**

“Sothis, run a check of the life support system.”

Above her head, there was an affirmative beep and a humming noise as the ship scanned. Byleth waited, drumming her hands against her thighs. There was a beep and she smiled. 

“ _Systems look good!_ ” Sothis’s cheery reply came through after a moment. 

Byleth closed the panel in the wall she had been working on and stood back up to her full height. “Good. How’s everything else?”

“ _We’re still on course and set to arrive at the same time. We’ll be able to refuel and restock and we’ll be set to return to course just after._ ”

“What about those pings I sent out yesterday? Can you tell if they’ve been received?”

“ _If they have, whoever got them has damn good blocking software._ ” 

Byleth hummed contemplatively. “Alright, I’m coming to the bridge. Can you send the codes over to Lysithea so that she can keep a second eye on them? Maybe if you don’t catch it, she might.”

Sothis gasped. _“Are you saying that she can find something I can’t?”_

Byleth laughed. “Maybe,” she agreed. “Lysithea was the one who brought you back online.”

_“And as grateful as I am about that, I am still offended that you would dare to insinuate that? Byleth, I thought we had something special!”_

If it was possible for an AI to sound put-out, Sothis managed it. Back when it had just been the two of them on board the Seiros before the events of the last year, Sothis had already seemed remarkably alive for a robotic personality, but since Lysithea had reset her and reintegrated her into the Seiros, Sothis seemed even _more_ alive. 

Whatever Lysithea had done had also upgraded Sothis. Her scans were now faster and more efficient. Overall, it felt like she had done a complete system upgrade when restarting the AI. Sothis swore that she was exactly the same as she was when she had been disconnected, but Byleth wasn’t so sure. 

Apparently, her memory banks had a large gap during the time that she had been shut off, but she had all of her memories from before the shutdown intact, right down to the last precise detail. Byleth was relieved to find that out because it meant that Sothis had saved the memories of her father and the original crew of the Seiros. 

In fact, the reset had exposed a memory block in Sothis that was installed by someone just months before Byleth’s father had died. Byleth had undone the block and found out more about the Seiros and about her father. 

Apparently, Jeralt Eisner had been a UEN sailor stationed on Selene, guarding a top-secret research facility. Byleth had known he was a UEN sailor, but the new history did explain how her father had met her mother and where the Seiros had come from. Apparently, the base had been mysteriously destroyed one day and her father took a set of patient files–the same ones Byleth had found encrypted in the Seiros’s life support–and stole the Seiros right out from under the UEN, fleeing into neutral space. 

There was no record of what exactly had happened to the base, nor did she have proof that it had been the place where the Lunars were kept, but it certainly appeared that that was the case since it was where her parents had met and the base had been destroyed just days after Byleth herself was born. 

As she strode through the hallways towards the bridge, Byleth thumbed the comm in her pocket. She was desperate to check it for any new notifications, but the last one she had received was days ago and it was simply a confirmation of the plan that she had set forward. 

“Sothis, can you bring up the news feeds on the console?” she requested as she rounded the last corner. 

“ _Done._ ”

Byleth walked into the bridge and saw that both the Earthen and Martian official news feeds were still showing footage from the coronation ceremony on Earth from a few days prior. She hesitated in front of the console, watching the feed as Dimitri knelt before the priest to swear his oaths. 

The sword was removed and the crown was lowered to his head and a small smile pulled up the corners of her lips as he then rose and turned to face the rest of the reception hall, looking regal and exactly like the king that he had just become. Byleth dismissed the feed with a wave of her hand. 

“I hope he’s not angry with me,” she murmured. 

_“For missing his coronation?”_ Sothis asked. 

“Yes. I know I said that I probably wouldn’t make it, but we might have if we hadn’t had that engine issue after leaving Europa.”

Sothis made a scoffing noise. _“Well, we can blame Claude for that. If his people had been so bad at actually helping us refuel and make repairs, we would have been fine!”_

Byleth laughed. “Well, I can’t blame them for too much. The way that their ships were built–” She paused, shaking her head. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

_“I’m just surprised that they were there at all!”_

Byleth shrugged. “After everything that happened with Selene, I can’t say I was too surprised? It’s a bit surprising that they’ve managed so well on their own without hardly any contact elsewhere, but you remember what Claude’s parents were like.”

_“Just like him.”_

“Yeah. And if Europa has survived that long without contact or anyone on Earth or Mars knowing about them, then it does make me more optimistic about our next steps.”

_“You mean chasing down these wild leads we have looking for your mother?”_

Byleth traced a circle on the edge of the console, pressing her lips together. “It’s far-fetched, I know.”

_“But they’re out there!”_ Sothis chimed in quickly. _“We know that they are. Our first message was picked up by someone, after all.”_

Byleth took a deep breath. “Yeah. I can’t help but wonder if they’re really there. Everything I had before Selene seemed to point to the fact that they had all been killed by that organization, but the files from Selene said that they just disappeared! People don’t just disappear, Lunar or not.”

“ _I_ _f they’re out there, we’re going to find them,”_ Sothis promised. “ _I know we will_.” 

“Your faith is admirable,” Byleth said. She was silent for a moment, thoughts swirling through her mind.

_“Oh! We’ve just entered Earth’s AO!”_

She jolted. “Already?”

_“Yes! You should probably get ready to bring us down. We have the clearance codes for landing in New York.”_

Byleth smiled and quickly stepped around the console, heading for the pilot’s controls. She sat down and pulled the straps around herself. She set her hands on the controls and engaged the manual flight control. 

“Sothis, can you send the pending transmissions off? That way he’ll know when I land.”

_“On it.”_

Byleth flipped off the drive and switched the power steering to the thrusters. She guided the ship into a dropping dive towards Earth. Her display beeped at her, showing the route she needed to follow to maintain the steady course for New York, and she twisted her wrists forward, pushing the ship along the curved, marked trajectory. 

She flipped a switch, holding the pattern, and then shifted her attention to the thrusters, setting up the rest of the ship for the landing procedures that she would engage once she broke the atmosphere. 

_“Comms are sent.”_

“Perfect. Can you align the outer thrusters?”

_“Consider it done.”_

Slowly and neatly, Byleth nudged the Seiros into Earth’s atmosphere and triggered the landing procedures. She pulled up on the controls, sending the ship spiralling into a dive that flipped it upwards and used the reverse propulsion to control its descent down to Earth. Finally, she dropped through the clouds and triggered the landing thrusters as the ship made the final part of its descent to the Earth’s surface. 

Once the ship had landed with a heavy thud, Byleth went through her post-landing procedure, flipping off the ship’s oxygen and opening the vents. As she was working through it, Sothis laughed. 

_“Oh come on, Byleth! They’re waiting for you. I can handle this part.”_

Byleth stopped what she was doing and took a deep breath, exhaling with a half-laugh. “If you’re sure.”

_“Of course I am.”_

Byleth quickly undid her restraints and climbed out of the chair, hurrying towards the exit bay of the ship. Her body felt like it was thrumming with energy as she waited for the lift to carry her down to the lowest deck on the ship so that she could exit the Seiros. She didn’t realize she was running until she heard the echo of her boots on metal floors as the bay doors opened. 

She was descending the ramp before it was even fully extended and she lifted an arm to block out the dazzling brightness of the sun. About a hundred feet in front of her, well out of the danger zone from the landing ship, there was a cluster of people, but Byleth’s eyes were fixed on the person who stood at the front. 

He broke into a run to meet her and she was leaping into him as soon as she could. His arms curled around her waist and she gripped his shoulders as he caught her and spun, using their momentum to turn in a tight circle. When he lowered her back to the ground, Byleth leaned back just far enough to grab his collar and pull him down into a kiss. 

Dimitri met her eagerly, smiling into the kiss almost as much as she was. Byleth held him close for a few seconds before she heard a wolf-whistle behind them. She leaned back and smiled at him, touching the side of his face lightly. 

“Sorry I’m late,” she said breathlessly. 

Dimitri just smiled at her and leaned forward until their foreheads bumped together. “You’re right on time.”

She kissed him again, quickly, just for that, and then she pulled back, turning to face the rest of her welcoming party. 

The rest of Dimitri’s friends, plus Claude, stood, waiting for her. Byleth grabbed Dimitri’s hand and tugged him along as she walked towards the rest of them. 

“Byleth,” Claude greeted. “Any news?”

“Nothing besides what we already knew,” she answered. She hesitated then and reached out, punching him in the shoulder. 

Claude recoiled, rubbing his arm. “What was that for?”

“From Nader,” Byleth answered simply. 

Claude laughed. “Of course it was.” He glanced past her to the ship. “When were you planning on setting out again?”

She raised an eyebrow and looked at Dimitri. “I think I can spare a few days here before we get back out there.”

Dimitri’s hand tightened on hers. “I hope so,” he agreed. 

“As long as you need,” Claude said. “I’ve got nowhere else to be and this gives me more time to enjoy my newfound gravity tolerance.”

Byleth laughed. “Gravity tolerance isn’t much help once we get up there.”

“Agreed.” Claude looked between her and Dimitri. “Well, you landed safely and we’re in no hurry to run off, so maybe the rest of us,” he paused, looking at the rest of the people clustered around, “can give the two of you another moment.”

Byleth turned back to Dimitri immediately, not willing to waste the opportunity that Claude was giving her. He was already smiling at her and warmth curled in her stomach as she squeezed his hand. 

“I wish I didn’t have to be running off on you,” she said. 

He chuckled. “We’ve already had this conversation at least twice.” He kissed her forehead. “I have to stay and you have to go. But, that doesn’t change the fact that I’ll be waiting for you.”

She nodded and then something in her chest tugged and she bit her lip. “What if I don’t find them? What if Claude and I have been doing all of this searching for no reason?”

“Then you don’t find them,” Dimitri answered simply. He squeezed her hand. “Like I said, I’ll be waiting for you whether you find them or not.”

Byleth leaned up on her tiptoes, grazing a light kiss against his mouth. “Okay.”

“Now, since I’ve convinced you to stay for a few days, there are some things we should do and there are people that you should meet.”

She laughed. “Alright, alright.”

She let Dimitri tug her by the hand across the courtyard away from the ship that had been her home for her entire life. His hand was warm in hers and she felt safe. There was ground beneath her feet and sun overhead. 

In a few days, she and Claude would be heading back up into space to continue the search for the Lunars, but for now, she was here on Earth. 

She was here and Dimitri’s hand was in hers and she let him lead her forward, into the future that they had fought for: the future that they had earned. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok so. It's done. But it's not over. Officially, I can say I'll be working on Antumbra's side series "Supernova" starting in 2021, though I make no promises on length, content, or when I'll start work on it. But I'm doing it, for sure. "Supernova" will cover a series of scenes that take place before, during, and after "Antumbra" featuring a variety of characters. If there are any scenes you'd love to see more of, feel free to Tweet at me or drop them in the comments. 
> 
> Next up, I want to start off by saying I know this fic was complicated! It was a lot! At one point I had a whole spreadsheet just to keep track of which characters knew which things. That being said, ask me any questions you need clarification on here in the comments or in [THIS](https://twitter.com/nicolewrites37/status/1340419284074295296?s=20) Twitter thread. 
> 
> And from this, in a few days (Dec 23 is the plan!) I'll be putting out a document including a breakdown of some fun statistics, fun facts, and tidbits about the fic and my writing process for those who are interested in that kind of stuff. In this, I'm also going to compile any and all of the questions and answers I give in the Twitter thread or in the comment section. 
> 
> Now, for the very necessary part where I thank all my mutuals in the Sylvgrid Discord. Mish and Sunni especially, are horrible enablers of me. But to Emi and Jul and Liv and Night who cheered me on, read my chapters, left me lovely comments, or even just told me that "hey that random Fe3h in space idea you threw out the other day sounds interesting, you should write it". And of course, to the rest of the sylvgrid server as well since this story wouldn't exist without you. I'm very grateful to all of you for your support and for providing me with the motivation to write this monster in UNDER SIX MONTHS. December 23 would mark the 6 month anniversary of the posting of Chapter 1, and that's why I'd like to post my info doc then. It'll be up on my Twitter and I'll edit this post to include it as well. 
> 
> Lastly, another huge thank you to everyone who came along on this ride with me, whether from the start or you picked it up closer to the end. I've never been one to write catastrophic lengthed things, but I can say at 150k, this definitely changes a lot of what I've thought about my own writing practices. Your comments kept me motivated and the desire to succeed spurs solely from my enjoyment of writing and providing content to everyone here. 
> 
> Anyway, now I'm being long-winded unnecessarily, but I'm on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/nicolewrites37) or you can find me freaking out in the Sylvgrid Discord Server <3


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